Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
As disastrous Supreme Court election cases go, Tuesday’s decision in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission doesn’t make the list of complete abominations, like the court’s decision this term in Louisiana v. Callais killing off the remaining key part of the Voting Rights Act, or earlier decisions like 2010’s Citizens United that kicked off the unraveling of our campaign finance system. Indeed, it’s possible that the NRSC decision makes our campaign finance system a bit less distorted in bringing candidates and parties closer together. But NRSC, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the six Republican-appointed justices, is an excellent example of the Roberts court’s “deregulatory bootstrapping,” in which the court relies on its earlier partial overruling of precedents—that only makes things worse—to justify more changes in the law. Fundamental change to campaign finance will have to wait for a new Supreme Court.
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The court went through a period in the early 2000s when it was deferential to Congress’ judgments as to the need for contribution limits and for spending limits on corporations and unions, and in one of those cases, Colorado II, from 2001, the Supreme Court held that Congress could limit how much money political parties may spend in coordination and cooperation with candidates. The court reasoned that without these limits, large donors could seek improper influence over candidates by giving money through political parties.
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In Tuesday’s opinion in NRSC, the court overturned Colorado II, and said that the part of federal campaign finance law limiting how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates violates the First Amendment. The court pointed to the “unique” role that political parties play in helping candidates win, and that they have their own First Amendment rights.
But the court also pointed to the development of super PACs as a reason to overturn the limits. All of these outside groups are unaccountable, spreading negative messages. Parties help preserve democracy in the court majority’s view, and it was only fair to free the parties of limits on them.
