Supreme Court strikes down party campaign spending limits

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(The Center Square) – The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision Tuesday, struck down 50-year old limits on political party spending for campaigns, a decision that could unleash swaths of funding into campaigns across the country.

Vice President JD Vance brought the lawsuit, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, as a then senator from Ohio several years ago. He argued rules preventing candidates from coordinating campaign expenses go against the First Amendment rights of a candidate running for office.

Justices on the high court agreed. Justice Brett Kavanaugh said The Federal Elections Campaign Act limits the First Amendment free speech rights of candidates for political office. 

The Federal Elections Campaign Act limits contributions to individual candidates each year. For 2025-2026 federal elections, the maximum individual donor contribution to a national party committee is $44,300.

“Because 'virtually every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of money,' a 'restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached,'” Kavanaugh said. 

Travis Trawick, CEO of FullPAC, told The Center Square the high court’s decision could unleash billions of dollars into campaigns throughout the country. He said the ruling could allow more billionaires to invest in political campaigns across the country, a trend recently seen by Elon Musk.

“We're going to see that trend continue and that's just kind of what America allows in our democracies,” Trawick told The Center Square.

Several justices on the court disagreed with the majority. Justice Elena Kagan said allowing political parties to support candidates through this decision endorses corruption in campaigns.

"The majority invalidates Congress’s restriction of coordinated expenditures, thus enabling a party to serve as an alternative checking account for a campaign," Kagan wrote. "As a result, a donor will be able to give a party as much as half a million dollars."

Judicial Crisis Network President Carrie Severino said the ruling upholds the First Amendment.

"This is a First Amendment Court, and today’s decision in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission is just the latest example," Sevearino wrote on X. "The Supreme Court has struck down limits on what parties can spend on their own candidates’ elections because there is no compelling governmental reason to limit speech especially around the key area of elections."

Advocates watching the decision agree that campaign spending could skyrocket while limits are made less strict. 

“We don't know what it could go to but we definitely know that it will be going up with those limits being removed,” Trawick said.