A decades-old law limiting how much money political parties can spend in coordination with candidates was struck down by the Supreme Court on June 30, 2026. Relying on First Amendment principles, the Court ruled in NRSC v. FEC that the limit unfairly prevented political parties from “freely” and “fully” advocating for their respective candidates. The case marks the latest chapter in the Roberts court’s 20-year journey toward a more deregulated campaign finance system.
While it wasn’t the earth-shattering Citizens United decision, the 2010 ruling that struck down limits on campaign spending by corporations and unions as a violation of their free speech is still significant. And it has the potential to fundamentally change the political process in the United States.
In fact, campaign finance regulation is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy. Some political theorists even argue that private financing of campaigns runs counter to core democratic principles of integrity, equality, and responsiveness to voters.
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Campaign Spending: Freedom or Corruption?
At the very least, it is widely agreed – and observed – that monetary policy in politics needs to be restricted in order to curb widespread corruption, in which the rich can donate unlimited amounts of money to politicians in exchange for favors.
An example from the Federal Election Commission website of a form that must be completed when a political party makes a campaign contribution.
Federal Election Commission
The U.S. Supreme Court has historically upheld limits on political spending only if they furthered that anti-corruption goal – the idea being that fighting corruption is a compelling reason to restrict political expression and association over the dollar.
Today’s discussion about campaign finance in the US revolves around topics such as dark money, extra-group spending and corporate personality. In contrast, political party spending receives comparatively little attention from scholars, activists, and the media.
This asymmetry is not entirely unfounded. Political party spending used to dominate the election cycle, with parties sometimes even spending more than their own candidates.
In 2000, for example, the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee combined spent more money on television ads supporting Texas Gov. George Bush and Vice President Al Gore than the candidates’ own campaigns.
Over the last two decades, however, political parties have played a diminishing role in elections. The emergence of super PACs, political action committees that can receive and spend unlimited amounts of money in support of candidates, has led to levels of out-of-group spending—spending made without coordination with a candidate—that far exceeds that of political parties. Additionally, candidates’ increasing reliance on small donations in the age of online fundraising has caused their financial support base to shift from their party to their individual supporters.
Still, political party spending remains important in U.S. elections. In the 2024 election cycle, for example, political parties spent over $2.6 billion supporting federal candidates—a significant amount, albeit modest compared to the $5.5 billion spent by federal candidates themselves and the whopping $15.5 billion spent by PACs and super PACs.
Regulating party spending is therefore an essential part of the US campaign finance system. And its deregulation could unlock billions of dollars in party spending in future elections.
What is the risk for what?
Federal campaign finance law regulates political parties in various ways.
Individuals can donate only a limited amount of money to political parties annually starting in 2025: $10,000 to state and local party committees and $44,300 to national party committees. Political parties are also prohibited from accepting funds from corporations and unions for party-building purposes, known as “soft money.”
Finally, prior to the NRSC v. FEC ruling, political parties were subject to restrictions on the amount of money they could spend in support of a particular candidate.
This last restriction has been the most challenged in court. NRSC vs. FEC is not the first time the Supreme Court has considered the legality of party spending limits.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Supreme Court heard two such lawsuits, both filed by the Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee. In the first case, Colorado Republicans challenged a federal campaign finance rule that limited how much money political parties could independently spend to support candidates. The Supreme Court ultimately struck down the restrictions as a violation of the parties’ right to speak under the First Amendment.
The second challenge, meanwhile, targeted federal limits on party spending, set directly in consultation with party candidates. The Supreme Court heard this case in 2001 and, in a perhaps surprising 5-4 decision, ultimately upheld the limits.
Why the different result? According to the court, the coordination posed a real risk of corruption.
In fact, underlying the Supreme Court’s broader campaign finance doctrine is a longstanding—and controversial—assumption that political spending does not raise any corruption concerns if it is made independently of any cooperation with a candidate. And if corruption is not a problem, the court finds that limiting political spending is unjustified.
Using this logic, the Supreme Court identified coordinated party spending as a potential source of corrupt dealings. Specifically, the court found that donors could use political parties as “intermediaries” to funnel additional money to candidates.
For example, individuals can currently only donate up to $3,500 to a specific federal candidate. Still, they can donate $44,300 to a national party committee, which can then pass that money on to the same federal candidate.
Back to court
Of course, the difference between a $3,500 donation and a nearly $50,000 donation is huge.
In its latter Colorado Republicans opinion, the Supreme Court specifically pointed to practices that emerged from this sewer system. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, for example, used to have exclusive clubs where generous donors were invited to face-to-face meetings with Democratic senatorial candidates.
In the 25 years following that decision, coordinated party spending limits remained in place, with the exact dollar amount changing each election cycle. In 2026, political parties could spend up to $65,300 in coordination with candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives, and $130,600 in states with only one representative. The limit, meanwhile, varied for U.S. Senate candidates depending on the state’s population, ranging from $130,600 for Wyoming to $4,071,800 for California.
But campaign finance experts knew the party’s coordinated spending limit was on shaky ground, as it only held on to the Supreme Court by a 5-4 majority. And in 2022, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, with an almost entirely different makeup of the Supreme Court, sued the Federal Election Commission over its enforcement of the limit.
Associate Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion in the campaign finance case.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Money is synonymous with language
The plaintiffs’ arguments were largely the same as those made by Colorado Republicans over two decades earlier, relying primarily on the First Amendment.
Nevertheless, as the plaintiffs explicitly noted in their briefs, the Supreme Court’s campaign finance doctrine had changed significantly under Chief Justice John Roberts’ tenure, moving toward a more libertarian, deregulatory jurisprudence. The plaintiffs therefore asked the court to reconsider its treatment of coordinated party spending limits.
The Court responded in NRSC v. FEC, reversing its earlier decision on the matter and ultimately removing the limit on coordinated party spending. The majority opinion, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, largely adopted the First Amendment argument that the limit limits the ability of political parties to advocate for their candidates.
As for the government’s interest in fighting corruption, the court was not convinced that limiting coordinated party spending was necessary to curb media corruption. In particular, the court found that existing disclosure laws and donation earmarking rules already act as a deterrent to donors seeking to use parties as a means to indirectly funnel money to candidates.
Many election law experts will likely argue that this decision will now lead to increased circumvention of federal limits on individual contributions to candidates. Justice Elena Kagan claimed in her dissent that the decision would only further contribute to “the legal system becoming increasingly incapable of stopping political corruption and thereby preserving the democratic legitimacy of our institutions.”
However, not all experts see today’s result as worrying. Many scholars are calling for a strengthening of the power of political parties in the face of an increasingly polarized country, viewing parties as an antidote to ideological extremism fueled by extra-group spending. For these scientists, authorizing unlimited coordinated spending by the parties could help achieve this goal.
One thing is certain after the NRSC vs. FEC decision: political party spending is now free. Parties are likely to play a greater role in future elections than ever before. Whether this is good for American democracy remains to be seen.
https://theconversation.com/political-parties-can-now-spend-unlimited-money-supporting-candidates-after-supreme-court-overturns-decades-of-precedent-280664
