National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n

Ratified in 1791, the First Amendment provides that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

As relevant here, the Federal Election Campaign Act, known as FECA, limits a political party's campaign spending.

Those spending limits necessarily abridge political parties' freedom of speech because virtually every means of communicating ideas in today's mass society requires the expenditure of money.

A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.

Applying the First Amendment, this court has long ruled that a political party possesses a right to make unlimited independent expenditures during a campaign, that is, expenditures without coordinating with a candidate.

But FECA still limits a political party's coordinated expenditures.

As the name implies, a political party's coordinated expenditures are the party's expenditures on, for example, advertisements produced or distributed in consultation with a candidate's campaign.

The primary current justification for those limits is to prevent circumvention, that is, to prevent a donor from circumventing the statutory limits on contributions to candidates by making a large contribution to a party that the party then uses to support a particular candidate.

Some 25 years ago, in a case known as Colorado II, this court, over the dissent of Justice Thomas for four justices, upheld FECA's limits on political party coordinated expenditures.

See Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, decided in 2001. but recently a group of candidates and political committees filed a new lawsuit and argued that Colorado II is no longer good law or should be overruled.

They point to the significant changes in this Court's First Amendment campaign finance jurisprudence since 2001, the enhancements in the other tools available to the government to prevent circumvention of the contribution limits, especially earmarking and disclosure laws, and the diminished relative power of political parties as compared to outside groups over the last 25 years, which has undermined a key premise of Colorado too.

In light of the doctrinal and factual changes since 2001, the United States agrees with plaintiffs that Colorado II no longer retains vitality.

So, the government does not defend the constitutionality of the political party-coordinated expenditure limits.

We likewise agree with plaintiffs and now hold that FECA's limits on political parties' coordinated expenditures violate the First Amendment.

FECA restricts a political party's coordinated expenditures, that is, a political party's spending on campaign activities in coordination with candidates.

The current political party coordinated expenditure limits vary by state and by office sought.

The national committee of a political party may spend from $130,600 to $4,071,800 in coordination with an individual Senate candidate, and from $65,300 to $130,600 in coordination with an individual House candidate.

In the most recent presidential election, the National Committee of a political party could spend $32,392,200 in coordination with a presidential candidate.

In 2001, this Court upheld the political party coordinated expenditure limits as consistent with the First Amendment.

Nearly a generation later, in 2022, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, then candidate for Senate J.D. Vance, and then Representative Steve Chabot sued the Federal Election Commission and its commissioners.

They claimed that the political party-coordinated expenditure limits violate the First Amendment.

Plaintiffs argued that political parties possess a First Amendment right to spend money as they see fit on political advertising and other campaign activities, and to do so in coordination with the party's candidates.

The en banc United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected plaintiff's challenge and upheld FECA's political party coordinated expenditure limits, applying this court's 2001 decision in Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, commonly referred to as Colorado II.

But in a series of insightful opinions, a majority of the judges on the Court of Appeals questioned that precedent in light of more recent First Amendment decisions of this court, particularly McCutcheon v.

Federal Election Commission decided in 2014 and Federal Election Commission v. Ted Cruz for Senate decided in 2022.