Supreme Court lifts Watergate-era caps on campaign spending

By Fredreka Schouten, John Fritze, CNN

(CNN) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a Watergate-era cap on how much money political parties may spend in coordination with candidates, siding with Republicans in a case initially filed by then-Senate candidate JD Vance that experts say could ultimately benefit the GOP in this year’s midterm election.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for a 6-3 conservative-liberal court.

In the opinion, Kavanaugh wrote that keeping limits in place could “help consign political parties to continued second-tier status as compared to outside groups.”

“Weakened political parties distort the political system,” he added.

The dissent of the court’s liberals, written by Justice Elena Kagan, blasted the Supreme Court for another decision that dismantles campaign finance reforms.

“I’m not sure what to call a remnant of a remnant, but that is what the Court has left today,” she wrote, warning that the legal regime created by the rulings is “increasingly unable to stop political corruption, and thus to preserve our institutions’ democratic legitimacy.”

Since the 1970s, political party committees, such as the fundraising arm of Senate Republicans, have been capped at how much money they may spend in coordination with a campaign. That has pushed a flood of campaign money toward super PACs, which have no spending limits but are unable to run their advertising and other messages past the candidate they want to help.

In 2022, Vance and several party committees — including the National Republican Senatorial Committee — challenged the law as a violation of the First Amendment. From the beginning, they appeared to have the upper hand at the 6-3 conservative court.

The majority has in recent years repeatedly invalidated campaign regulations. Several years ago, the court struck down a limit on campaigns’ ability to use post-election funds to repay loans made by candidates. In 2014, the court eliminated limits on how much donors could give to all candidates and parties in aggregate during a two-year period. Four years before that, the court handed down its decision in Citizens United v. FEC, which allowed corporations to spend unlimited sums in candidate elections.

Republicans argued that the caps on coordinated party spending were hopelessly out of step with the court’s modern approach to campaign finance law. And they asserted in briefing that the law “harmed our political system by leading donors to send their funds elsewhere,” such as super PACs.

Financial advantage

Even before the court’s decision was handed down, Republicans entered the election year with a substantial financial advantage over Democrats. The Republican Party has had significantly more cash on hand than the Democratic National Committee in recent disclosure reports.

In recent cycles, however, individual Democratic candidates in key races for Congress typically have outraised Republicans, powered by small-dollar donations. The ruling paves the way for Republican campaign committees to counter Democratic candidates’ longstanding grassroots fundraising edge.

Both Democrats and Republicans have been preparing for the ruling and looking for ways to capitalize on it — although they have been reluctant to telegraph their specific strategies publicly, according to strategists. But the impact of the court’s decision already has been felt by political operatives in Washington.

As they prepared for a new fundraising landscape, some party committees held off on establishing and hiring staff and consultants for so-called “independent expenditure” operations — arms that are firewalled from political parties’ day-to-day functions to focus on advertising in the most competitive races.

What voters will likely see is a flood of new political commercials this year, as party committees race to seize on their newfound ability to work directly with candidates and take advantage of lower advertising rates that broadcasters must offer to candidates close to Election Day under federal law.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Tierney Sneed contributed to this report.