Supreme Court strikes down Watergate-era restrictions on political party campaign spending

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down Watergate-era limits on how much money political parties can spend on joint campaigns and candidates.

In a 6-3 vote, the court said the restrictions on groups and their campaign ads violated the First Amendment.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said the court restores broad free speech protections to political parties and candidates.

“Nearly 200 years after the ratification of the 1st Amendment, parties can freely use it to support candidates and can do so in conjunction with candidates,” he wrote. “The important thing is that no one suggests that ‘this election was ineffective or was interfered with by corruption’.”

The decision is a victory for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and will likely give Republicans a boost this year in their bid to retain control of Congress.

That’s because Republican national committees that support congressional candidates have $230 million available to spend this year, while struggling Democratic committees have less than $120 million.

The party’s funding limits were challenged in 2022 in a lawsuit filed by JD Vance, who was then running for the Ohio Senate, and Republican party committees.

Republicans have argued that these restrictions on parties are outdated and unwise in an era when “SuperPACs” can raise and spend large sums of money to promote candidates because they are independent.

If so, ask them why parties are not free to raise money and link their campaign ads to candidates?

Under current limits, the Federal Election Commission says a donor can only give $3,500 to a candidate seeking federal office, but $132,900 to national party committees.

Since the 1970s, however, federal election law has restricted parties from sponsoring candidates’ campaigns on the grounds that it would allow wealthy donors to buy influence.

But court officials have repeatedly ruled that campaign finance is protected as free speech under the 1st Amendment.

In the Citizens United case of 2010, they overturned laws prohibiting the use of money in elections by individuals, corporations, unions and other groups.

Standing on the left were much lower limits on direct money to candidates and limits on how much parties could contribute to supporting candidates directly.

Limits on parties and how they support candidates have been controversial for decades.

The Supreme Court upheld the limits by a vote of 5-4 in 2001 and said that these “bundled expenses” were more like donations than private spending and, therefore, could be limited to protect against corruption.

Two years ago, the Biden administration defended the law, and an appeals court upheld it based on a 2001 court decision.

But last year, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a new challenge in the National Republican Senatorial Committee vs. FEC.

Instead of defending the law, the Trump administration sided with the GOP and said party limits should be lowered.

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan looked back at the history of the Watergate era.

“For more than half a century, federal law has guarded against real and apparent quid pro quo corruption in our political system by limiting the amount of money a donor can contribute to a candidate,” he said. “The idea of ​​the law is simple: A candidate may be compensated to trade official actions for campaign contributions—and the larger the contribution, the stronger the candidate’s temptation and the public’s suspicion.

“But today, the court is rewriting the rules, to allow the limits on donations to be exceeded … and it is returning to the same opportunities for quid pro quo corruption that the limits on donations should have been checked.”

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed.

The Democratic National Committee and attorney Marc Elias stepped in to protect the borders.

He said groups are free to speak out in favor of candidates but said allowing them to “subsidize the campaign costs of candidates” is an uncontrollable contribution.

Besides, “the possibility of actual or perceived corruption is obvious,” he said.

This decision is another cornerstone of the GOP’s election year.

Last month, court officials ruled that the Voting Rights Act did not prevent Republican-controlled states in the South from redrawing congressional districts that favored Black Democrats.

New maps in Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee and Florida are expected to flip several seats in favor of the GOP.