WASHINGTON- Conservatives on the Supreme Court signaled Tuesday that they will likely rule in favor of Republicans and President Trump by removing a Watergate-era limit on political party campaign financing.
The court has repeatedly said that campaign money is protected as free speech, and the new ruling could allow parties to support their candidates' campaigns with the help of wealthy donors.
For the second day in a row, Trump administration lawyers urged judges to strike down a law passed by Congress. And they seemed to have the support of the majority of conservatives.
The only question arose over the question of whether the case was flawed because no current candidate challenged the limits.
“The parties are very weakened,” said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. “This court's decisions over the years have collectively reduced the power of political parties, compared to outside groups, with negative effects on our constitutional democracy.”
He was referring to rulings supporting unlimited campaign spending by wealthy donors and so-called super PACs.
In the 2010 Citizens United case, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and four other conservatives struck down longstanding limits on campaign spending, including by corporations and unions. They did so on the theory that such spending was “independent” of the candidates and protected as free speech under the First Amendment.
They said limits on contributions to candidates were not affected. These limits could be justified by the danger of corruption when money buys political favors. This unleashed a new era of ever-increasing political spending, but most of it was separate from candidates and parties.
Last year, billionaire Elon Musk spent more than $250 million to support Donald Trump's re-election campaign. He did so with money spent through political action committees, not directly to Trump or his campaign.
Meanwhile, campaign finance laws limit contributions to candidates at $3,500.
Lawyers for the National Republican Senatorial Committee pointed to this trend and told the Supreme Court that its decisions had “eroded” the basis of some of the remaining 1970s limits on campaign finance.
Tuesday's topic was limits on “coordinated party spending.” In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress added limits on campaign money that could be given to parties and used to finance their candidates. The current donation limit is $44,000, the attorneys said.
Washington attorney Noel Francisco, Trump's attorney general during his first term, urged the court to remove these limits, saying they are outdated and violate free speech.
“The theory is that they are necessary to prevent an individual donor from laundering a $44,000 donation through the party to a particular candidate in exchange for official action,” he said.
If a big-money donor hopes to gain a favor from a congressional candidate, “the would-be briber would be better off simply making a massive donation to the candidate's favorite super PAC,” Francisco said.
The lawsuit heard Tuesday was filed by then-Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and other Republican candidates, and has continued in his role as vice president and possibly presidential candidate in 2028.
The Justice Department typically defends federal laws, but in this case, the Trump administration switched sides and joined Republicans calling for the party's spending limits to be lifted.
Precedents may have gotten in the way.
In 2001, the Supreme Court had narrowly upheld these limits on the grounds that direct party support was like a contribution, not an independent expense. But Deputy Attorney General Sarah Harris told the justices Tuesday that the court's recent decisions have “demolished” that precedent.
“Parties cannot corrupt candidates, and there is no evidence to suggest that donors launder bribes by co-opting parties' coordinated spending with candidates,” he said.
Marc Elias, a Democratic attorney, joined the case in support of the court limits. He said the outcome would have little to do with the speech or campaign messages.
“I think we're underestimating the real corruption” that could arise, he said. If an individual were to donate $1 million to a political party while that person has a business matter before the House or Senate, he said, it's plausible that that could influence “a deciding or swing vote.”
The only apparent difficulty for the conservative justices arose over procedural issues.
Washington attorney Román Martínez was asked to defend the law, arguing that neither Vance nor any other Republican had legal standing to challenge the limits. Vance was not a current candidate and said the case should be dismissed for that reason.
Some legal observers noted that the party limits arose in response to evidence that huge contributions to President Nixon's re-election campaign came from industry donors seeking government favors.
“Coordinated spending limits are one of the few checks left to curb the influence of wealthy special interests in our elections,” said Omar Noureldin, senior vice president of litigation at Common Cause. “If the Supreme Court dismantles them, party leaders and wealthy donors will be free to invest almost unlimited money directly into federal campaigns — exactly the kind of corruption these rules were created to stop.”
Daniel I. Weiner, an election law expert at the Brennan Center, said the justices were well aware of how removing these limits could set the stage for future challenges.
“I was struck by how both sides had to recognize that this case should not be weighed in isolation but as part of a decades-long effort to repeal campaign finance rules,” he said. “Those other decisions have had many consequences that the court itself could not anticipate.”
