National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n

Case background

The Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) restricts a political party’s spending on campaign activities undertaken in coordination with its candidates. 52 U. S. C. §30116(d). Those coordinated-expenditure limits vary by State and by office sought; a national party committee may spend from $130,600 to $4,071,800 in coordination with a Senate candidate. In 2001, in Federal Election Comm’n v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm., 533 U. S. 431 (Colorado II), this Court upheld the limits as consistent with the First Amendment. In 2022, a group of candidates and political party committees sued the Federal Election Commission: the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, then-candidate for Senate JD Vance, and then-Representative Steve Chabot. They argued that Colorado II is no longer good law in light of the Court’s more recent campaign finance decisions. A majority of the judges on the en banc U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit questioned Colorado II but considered themselves bound by it, and so rejected the challenge. This Court granted certiorari. Because the United States declined to defend the limits, the Court appointed Roman Martinez as amicus curiae to defend the judgment below, and the Democratic national and congressional campaign committees intervened.

Questions Presented

(1) Whether the limits on coordinated party expenditures in 52 U.S.C. § 30116 violate the First Amendment, either on their face or as applied to party spending in connection with “party coordinated communications” as defined in 11 C.F.R. § 109.37.

Holding

FECA’s political-party coordinated-expenditure limits violate the First Amendment. The Court has jurisdiction under Article III: at least one plaintiff had standing at the outset of the litigation, and Vice President Vance still maintains an active “Statement of Candidacy” on file with the FEC along with a campaign committee that has raised money for a Senate race. On the merits, the Court’s precedents recognize only one permissible objective for campaign finance restrictions: preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. The anti-circumvention rationale of Colorado II cannot carry these limits under the rigorous review the closely drawn test now demands. The base contribution limits, the earmarking rules, and the disclosure requirements together already serve the Government’s anti-circumvention interest without unduly restricting core political party speech, so the coordinated-expenditure limits are “disproportionate” and are not “necessary” and “narrowly tailored.” Colorado II’s reasoning has been rejected by the Court’s more recent precedents, and to the extent it retained any vitality it is now overruled. 117 F. 4th 389, reversed and remanded.

The Court

Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett joined. Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Sotomayor and Jackson joined.

What this episode contains

This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n, written by Justice Kavanaugh.

AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Kavanaugh. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.