SCOTUS overturns campaign finance limit in major ruling
Supreme Court overturns coordinated spending limits 6-3, reshaping campaign finance rules and raising new concerns about money in politics.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Sept. 4 sided with the Republican Party in a dispute over radio and television advertising rates that could help the GOP maintain control of Congress in the November elections.
The justices revived for now a federal policy giving political parties the same discounted rates that candidates enjoy, ruling that a Democratic challenge to the Trump administration’s interpretation of the law failed for procedural reasons.
There was only one noted dissent, from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
An appeals court had blocked the new policy from going into effect.
Republicans, who are trying to fend off a blue wave to protect their majorities in the House and Senate, are expected to benefit from the high court’s intervention because their political committees have raised considerably more money than have Democrats’ party committees. That could help the GOP close resource gaps in key races where Democratic candidates have outraised Republicans.
The Supreme Court previously gave the GOP a boost in June when a majority struck down a 50-year-old rule capping how much parties can spend in coordination with candidates.
The latest decision allows parties to stretch those dollars farther when buying broadcast ads to help candidates.
Law says candidates get lowest ad rates in runup to elections
In the run-up to an election, states are required by federal law to give their lowest rates to “any person who is a legally qualified candidate for any public office in connection with his campaign.”
In March, the Federal Communications Commission said that applies to ads run by political parties in coordination with candidates.
Four Democrats running for the House or Senate in battleground races – including Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff − challenged that interpretation.
Ossoff had 20 times more campaign cash at the end of June than his Republican challenger, Rep. Mike Collins, according to disclosure reports.
Lower court ruled for Democrats
In a 2-1 decision, the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with the Democrats, ruling that the law is “unambiguous” and doesn’t support the FCC’s “significant and unilateral expansion” of the lowest-rate requirement.
The campaign arms of House and Senate Republicans asked the Supreme Court to intervene. The Justice Department backed that request.
The GOP and the Trump administration argued that not only did the appeals court get the law wrong, but the court should not have gotten involved at all because the FCC’s announcement was not a final decision by the agency.
In an unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court said the lawsuit was premature because the FCC had not completed its internal review of the Democrats’ complaint before it was challenged in court.
The appeals court had said the FCC had “effectively” finalized its decision through “unusual circumstances” that included the agency’s lack of urgency in addressing the Democrats’ complaint.
The Justice Department also argued that Democrats couldn’t challenge the policy because it gives both political parties the opportunity to benefit from lower ad rates and “does not grant favored treatment to one side or the other.”
Lawyers for the Democratic candidates said they’re harmed by the policy – so are entitled to sue – because it requires them to raise and spend more money in response to party ads.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee told the Supreme Court they’d already “budgeted tens of millions of dollars in ad buys under these rules.” But because of the appeals court’s rulings, broadcast stations “are already rescinding these rates.”
Will Kiley, a spokesman for the NRCC, said Democrats “ran to the courthouse in the final weeks of an election to try to limit protected party speech” because they “can’t win at the ballot box.”
“We’re pleased that effort will not disrupt political advertising across the country in the middle of election season,” Kiley said in a statement after the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Democrats called the policy an effort by Republicans to “flood the midterm elections with money from billionaire donors and drown out the power of the grassroots because they know their agenda is deeply unpopular and they cannot win on the merits.”
“Now that we know the rules under which we are playing, we will continue to fight tooth-and-nail to win both chambers of Congress,” Devan Barber and Will Van Nuys, leaders of the campaign arms of House and Senate Democrats said in a joint statement. “To the Republicans who have pushed for this, be careful what you wish for.”
