Supreme Court Justices Express Skepticism Over Axing Another Political Money Limit

Long-standing restrictions on how much money political parties can spend in coordination with candidates were on the chopping block Tuesday at the Supreme Court.

But justices, conservative and liberal, seemed at least somewhat skeptical of doing so.

“Once we take off this coordinated expenditure limit, what’s left?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a liberal, asked. “What’s left is nothing, no control whatsoever.”

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative, expressed concern about the opportunity for quid pro quo corruption, since party committees can take in a lot more money than candidates — even as he said he was worried about the erosion of power of political parties in the age of big-spending super PACs.

Vice President JD Vance — a likely 2028 presidential candidate — Republican Party committees and former Rep. Steve Chabot last year asked the Supreme Court to overturn limits on how federal candidate committees and party committees may coordinate their political spending.

Vice President JD Vance. Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Expenditure coordination limits, they argue, violate the First Amendment’s free speech guarantees. They also argue that axing the coordination limit would reassert some of the power that political parties have lost as super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, have taken on a bigger role in elections over the past decade and a half.

The Trump administration supports the challenge, abandoning the federal government’s longstanding defense of coordination limits.

The Democratic National Committee, which intervened to defend coordination limits, argues they were critical to guard against corruption. By law, party committees can take in a lot more money than campaigns.

But Noel Francisco of law firm Jones Day argued in court Tuesday on behalf of the National Republican Senatorial Committee that “a would-be briber would be better writing a massive check to the candidate’s super PAC.”

Sarah Harris of the Department of Justice also argued that political parties, unlike donors, “can’t corrupt candidates, and no evidence suggests donors launder bribes by co-opting parties’ coordinated spending with candidates.”

Prominent campaign finance lawyer Marc Elias of Elias Law Group argued in his opening remarks before the high court that coordination limits “do not pose any meaningful burden on party speech.” He also argued that effectively turning party committees into piggy banks for campaigns would further erode their power.

“In fact, the vast majority of them hardly involve speech at all,” said Elias, who represents the DNC. “The practical effect of petitioners’ case would be to convert the political parties into mere paymasters to settle invoices from campaign vendors.”

A favorable ruling from the Supreme Court, which features a 6-3 conservative majority, would have the practical effect of giving both Republican and Democratic national party committees the right to spend unlimited amounts of cash on advertisements, hotels and other expenditures to help their candidates win.

The Supreme Court rejected an attempt to overturn these limits back in 2001, ruling they were permissible to prevent corruption.

But campaign finance laws have changed significantly during the past two decades. The Supreme Court has generally rejected legal arguments that big money and secret contributions corrupt American elections. The 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC ranks among the notable among a series of similar federal court decisions.

Both Kavanaugh and liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested that a ruling for the plaintiff in the case, known as NRSC v. FEC, could lead to further erosion of campaign finance laws — specifically, restrictions on how much money party committees may accept from donors.

Ketanji Brown Jackson. Bill Clark/AP

Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, for his part, took issue with the questions and arguments about the potential incremental erosion of campaign finance law, which he called speculative.

Federal political candidates can only accept $3,500 per person per race — primary, general and runoff — during the 2026 election cycle.

Party committees such as the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, on the other hand, can accept as much as $886,000 during each two-year cycle from a single donor. That includes $44,300 to a party committee’s general account and $132,900 each, per year, to three additional party committee accounts — a recount and legal fund, a national headquarters building fund and a presidential nominating convention fund.

Questions about Vance’s political future could derail the case, as the DNC argued his complaint was moot since he was not running for office.

Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative, asked early on about Vance’s intentions to run for president in 2028.

Francisco said he thought Vance was doing “what virtually every candidate for the presidency does,” which is to “wait until after the midterm elections in order to announce his specific intentions.”

But, Francisco said, “this court doesn’t have to blind itself to the reality that’s obvious to everybody else.”