In a major decision today, the Supreme Court in NRSC v. FEC struck down longstanding limits on “coordinated party expenditures” that restricted the amounts political parties could spend in coordination with federal candidates. With this decision, national party committees and the federal accounts of state parties can now spend unlimited funds to support individual federal candidates in coordination with those candidates.
Though the decision does not affect contribution limits applicable to corporate PACs, the amount individuals may contribute to candidates or party committees, or the ability of corporations to contribute to outside organizations, we expect this decision to have a series of important effects. Most clearly, it will shift the balance of campaign spending power toward the national party committees, which had decreased in importance since the rise of outside spending vehicles, including Super PACs, in recent years. Especially because contributors can give much larger contributions to parties than to candidates, this decision will substantially change how campaigns are funded in federal elections.
But there will be follow-on consequences as well. Because party committees can accept much larger contributions than individual campaigns and can set up joint committees with campaigns and other PACs that can raise even larger amounts, major donors will be under increased pressure to give the maximum amount allowed to parties and their joint committees. Corporate PACs, which often prioritize individual candidate giving over party contributions, may also face increased pressure to give to the national party committees. While the ability to spend unlimited amounts in coordination with candidates will give parties a boost by itself, recent guidance from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) may supercharge party spending by clarifying that coordinated party spending is subject to the same favorable advertising rates provided to candidates, though this guidance is subject to dispute. Finally, this development could lead to courts striking down the limits on direct party contributions to federal candidates or even the limits on individuals’ contributions to federal parties, among other potential developments.
It stands to reason that the role of party spending for the remainder of the 2026 cycle, and for the 2028 presidential cycle, will look very different than in the years since Citizens United led to the Super PAC boom.
The Federal Election Campaign Act (“the Act”) regulates federal campaign finance. The Act allows national party committees (including the DNC, DSCC, DCCC, RNC, NRSC, and NRCC) and the federal accounts of state party committees to make “coordinated party expenditures.” This is spending that benefits the general election campaigns of federal candidates and is coordinated with those federal candidates, meaning the candidate can offer input and direction on the spending. This spending is in addition to the amount a party can give directly to a candidate’s campaign as a contribution. Coordinated party expenditures often are used to pay for campaign advertising, or party coordinated communications. Until today, coordinated party expenditures were subject to limits that varied based on the office sought, but generally paled in comparison to the total amounts spent on advertising and other expenses in a competitive campaign.
In 2024, the coordinated party expenditure limit for the general election nominee for President for the national party committees was $32,392,200. The coordinated party expenditure limit for a House candidate in 2026 is between $65,300 and $130,600, with the higher figure reserved for states with only one representative. The coordinated party expenditure limit for a Senate candidate in 2026 is between $130,600 and $4,071,800, “depending on each state’s voting age population (VAP)[.]”
In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld limits on coordinated party expenditures in Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (“Colorado Republican II”). There, the Court characterized coordinated party expenditures “as the functional equivalent of contributions” and therefore held they could be subject to limits for the purpose of preventing corruption, which the majority defined “not only as quid pro quo agreements, but also as undue influence on an officeholder’s judgment, and the appearance of such influence.” The Court concluded “that a party’s coordinated expenditures, unlike [its independent] expenditures ... may be restricted to minimize circumvention of contribution limits.”
But since Colorado Republican II, there has been a sea change in federal campaign finance law, making that decision ripe for reconsideration. This includes Citizens United v. FEC and subsequent decisions that have narrowed the permissible reasons for which campaign finance activity can be subject to limits and eliminated some restrictions entirely.
Sensing this shift in the law, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, then-Senator J.D. Vance, and former Representative Steve Chabot (“challengers”) sued the Federal Election Commission in 2022, challenging coordinated party expenditure limits as unconstitutional under the First Amendment. The challengers contended that the Supreme Court’s “refin[ing] [of] its campaign finance jurisprudence[;]” 2014 legislation allowing the party committees to create special-purpose accounts not subject to coordinated party expenditure limits; and “the rise of [unlimited] spending by Super PACs[,]” have made it so that Colorado Republican II is no longer binding on lower courts.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio certified the constitutional question to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Sixth Circuit recognized the shifting law but upheld the limits on coordinated party expenditures based on the precedent of Colorado Republican II. The court wrote: “The key reality is that the Supreme Court has not overruled the 2001 Colorado decision or the deferential review it applied to these provisions of the Act. In a hierarchical legal system, we must follow that decision and thus must deny the plaintiffs’ First Amendment facial and as applied challenges.” The Supreme Court granted the challengers’ petition for a writ of certiorari on June 30, 2025, and heard oral arguments on December 9, 2025.
In today’s opinion for the Court, Justice Kavanaugh struck down the party coordinated expenditure limits and expressly overruled Colorado Republican II. The opinion explained that, since Colorado Republican II, other decisions of the Court have both narrowed the Constitutionally-valid bases for imposing campaign finance limits, and adopted a clearer “closely drawn scrutiny” test for determining when a restriction is a valid tool to enforce those bases.
The Court explained that any limit on contributions is subject to “closely drawn scrutiny,” under which the limit must be both necessary and narrowly tailored to its purpose, and may not be disproportionate to that purpose. Review under this test must be “rigorous.” It then reinforced that the current Court recognizes only one valid purpose for campaign finance restrictions, which is preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance – in the process identifying those purposes that are no longer considered valid.
Looking to whether the coordinated party spending limits are permissible, the Court determined that given the existing limits on contributions to parties and candidates; rules governing “earmarked” contributions, contributions that are specifically designated for the benefit of one candidate; and disclosure laws, especially given technological developments that can leverage those disclosures, the limits on coordinated party spending are “disproportionate and are not necessary and narrowly tailored for the circumvention interest it seeks to protect.” The existing limits, earmarking rules, and disclosure are enough. Therefore, the coordinated party contribution limits are unconstitutional.
Significantly, the Court focused on the anti-circumvention rationale for the rules – the idea that the party coordinated limits prevent bad actors from avoiding the contribution limits and engaging in quid pro quo corruption via coordinated party spending. This was the ultimate rationale for upholding the limits in Colorado Republican II. But, the Court wrote today, “this Court has since retreated from that rationale. As the Court later emphasized in McCutcheon, that kind of purported circumvention is one significant step removed from actual quid pro quo corruption—that is, from a donor’s contribution to a candidate in exchange for official action.” Thus, while anti-circumvention remains a valid basis for campaign finance limits, the opinion seems to hint that it is not as strong a basis as it once was – that it will not support multiple restrictions where fewer will suffice.
This combination of a potentially weakened anti-circumvention rationale, a stricter view of the “closely drawn scrutiny,” and continued emphasis on the narrow anti-corruption purpose as the only valid purpose of campaign finance laws, could mean other aspects of the campaign finance regulatory system are at risk, as explored below.
Today’s decision will significantly affect how federal campaigns are funded. Party committees will become a much more attractive vehicle for campaign financing, though the exact details may shift depending on subsequent litigation and regulatory action. Super PACs, while remaining a key part of the ecosystem because they can accept unlimited funds in addition to making unlimited expenditures, may become relatively less important than they are today since they cannot receive input from the campaigns they support. Today’s decision also calls into question the limits on direct contributions from parties to campaigns, and also further undermines the constitutionality of limits on contributions by federal government contractors to Super PACs.
Shift toward party funding. Before today’s decision, costs incurred by a federal campaign could be paid in one of two ways. Either the campaign could pay those costs using funds raised by the campaign itself, or parties—which are subject to much higher contribution limits than individual campaigns ($44,300/individual per year vs. $3,500/individual per election)—could pay a campaign’s bills up to the coordinated expenditure limits. But even the presidential $32 million coordinated party expenditure limit was only a fraction of the approximately $2 billion raised by the Harris campaign and DNC, or $1.2 billion raised by the Trump campaign and RNC in 2024. Because the coordinated spending limits placed a significant constraint on the ability of parties to make expenditures in conjunction with candidates, parties have employed a variety of means to run ads or otherwise support or oppose candidates outside those limits. Most notably, party committees have long run independent expenditures in favor of candidates by putting some party staff behind a “firewall” to engage in party spending but prevent them from coordinating with the campaigns. Super PACs also run independent expenditures. Independent expenditures can be powerful, but they cannot have candidate involvement – they must only take an educated guess at how to spend the money to best benefit the candidate. After today’s decision, every dollar spent by the parties to support a candidate can be spent with the candidate’s involvement. Today’s decision will provide a powerful new tool for donors seeking to support coordinated efforts to elect their preferred candidates.
Joint fundraising. As parties have sought to maximize the utility of party funds to support individual candidates, joint fundraising committees (“JFCs”) have already taken a central role in party activity. These are committees that divide their receipts among participating campaigns, PACs, and parties and share their costs as well. Most recently, the 2024 election cycle saw parties pay for JFC solicitation advertisements that featured individual candidates and were nearly indistinguishable from traditional candidate ads. While the legality of those solicitations remains subject to challenge in DCCC v. FEC, today’s decision could supercharge the use of JFCs to support individual candidates in other ways. In recent presidential elections, both the DNC and the RNC have established large JFCs including dozens of state parties to raise funds for coordinated party activities throughout the country. The end of coordinated expenditure limits provides an incentive for the congressional party committees (NRSC, DSCC, NRCC, DCCC) to create similar vehicles so that major donors can give large, combined contributions for the parties to put to use in coordination with candidates and their campaigns. Candidates may have more incentive to raise money for parties, whether directly or via joint fundraising committees, to ensure the party has money to support them.
Advertising costs and the “lowest unit charge.” On their own, the end of coordinated expenditure limits can be expected to breathe new life into party power in campaign spending. Just how much new power the parties will enjoy, however, will be determined in part by how much advertising party funds can buy. Under regulations issued by the FCC, broadcast television and radio stations must offer candidates the lowest rate offered to any commercial advertiser for a comparable advertising placement. These “lowest unit charge” regulations mean that candidates pay much lower rates than Super PACs and parties have in past cycles, helping candidate spending remain relevant. The FCC recently issued guidance that coordinated party communications are also entitled to these low rates, the same as a candidate. But the Solicitor General took the opposite position in briefing in this litigation. Candidates and parties can be expected to demand that broadcasters treat coordinated party spending, already juiced by this decision, as subject to the lowest unit charge per the FCC guidance. It is not yet clear how the broadcast industry will respond. How this issue is ultimately resolved will have a significant impact on how today’s decision reshapes federal campaign spending.
Small dollar effect. There is speculation that unlimited coordinated party spending—coupled with lowest unit charge pricing for party coordinated spending and expanded party-led JFCs—could lead campaigns to rely more heavily on major donors, who will soon be able to contribute large sums to the parties that can be used to support their preferred candidates. With that said, similar predictions following the Court’s Citizens United decision and the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act have proven to be somewhat overstated. Indeed, small-dollar fundraising remains a powerful indicator of grassroots support, with candidates touting small-dollar fundraising totals as a marker of both voter enthusiasm and ideological independence. Reports of the death of small-dollar fundraising have been exaggerated before, and today’s decision may well have little impact on the value of grassroots fundraising in the cycles to come.
Further challenges to party contribution limits. Even after today’s decision, federal law still limits the amount a party can contribute to a candidate directly. Particularly if only candidate-funded advertisements are entitled to preferential rates, these limits could blunt the impact of today’s decision to some degree. As multiple parties noted to the Court, however, eliminating coordinated party expenditure limits provides a ready basis to strike down those party-to-candidate limits. Though others sought to distinguish coordinated expenditures on the ground that expenditures of party funds constitute “the party’s own speech and reduc[e] the risk of conduit bribery schemes,” the issue seems ripe for further challenge. For much the same reason, it is easy to imagine future challenges to the limits governing how much parties themselves can raise from individual donors. While the outcome of any future challenges to either of these limits is difficult to predict, today’s decision may be only the first step towards deregulation of party committee raising and spending.
Federal contractor contributions to Super PACs. Beyond the immediate implications for other party limits, today’s decision leaves any number of campaign finance regulations vulnerable to legal challenge. For example, because the opinion reinforces that preventing quid pro quo corruption is the only permissible basis for restricting political speech, the decision further calls into question the validity of the ban on federal government contractors making contributions, at least as applied to contributions to Super PACs. In 2010, the D.C. Circuit sitting en banc held that limits on contributions to Super PACs are unconstitutional because “independent expenditures do not corrupt or create the appearance of quid pro quo corruption[.]” Some FEC Commissioners and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia have noted the dubious constitutionality of the contractor ban as applied to Super PACs after SpeechNow, on the theory that contributions to groups that make only independent expenditures cannot be corrupting. Today’s decision reinforces that logic.
Next steps. With any future litigation still to come, attention will turn most immediately to the FEC and its response to today’s decision, as well as developments on the lowest unit charge issue. It took the FEC years to institute regulatory and other changes to adapt to Super PACs after Citizens United. And the FEC currently lacks the quorum necessary to issue binding regulations or advisory opinions. For now, parties, campaigns, and donors looking for guidance on the effects of this decision will need to seek advice from trusted counsel, as Commission guidance may be a long time coming.
If you have any questions concerning the material discussed in this client alert, please contact the members of our Election and Political Law practice.
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