U.S. Supreme Court strikes down party coordinated spending limits in election law ruling

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Supreme Court election law ruling

Highlights

On June 30, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in NRSC v. FEC that Federal Election Campaign Act limits on coordinated party expenditures are unconstitutional.
The Court overruled Colorado II and reversed the Sixth Circuit, finding only preventing quid pro quo corruption justifies restricting political spending, not anti-circumvention theories.
The decision eliminates spending caps for party-coordinated expenditures, likely increasing financial coordination between party committees and federal election candidates.

Constitutional ruling overturns long-standing spending cap

As reported by the Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court holds that the Federal Election Campaign Act’s limits on coordinated party expenditures are unconstitutional in NRSC v. FEC, a case decided on June 30, 2026.

The Act allows national and state party committees to make special expenditures tied to federal general election campaigns without counting them against standard contribution caps, but those expenditures have been subject to separate inflation-adjusted limits based on the office sought and the relevant voting-age population.

The case began on November 4, 2022, when the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, then-Senator J.D. Vance and then-U.S. Representative Steven Chabot sued the Commission in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. After the district court certified the constitutional challenge in January 2024, the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in September 2024 that the limits did not violate the First Amendment, relying on the Supreme Court’s 2001 decision in FEC v. Colo. Republican Fed. Campaign Comm., known as Colorado II.

The Supreme Court says its more recent campaign finance cases have narrowed the government’s acceptable justification for restricting political spending. In its opinion, the Court says only preventing corruption, or the appearance of corruption, remains a legitimate basis for such limits, and that this applies specifically to quid pro quo corruption, contributions exchanged for official action.

Campaign finance impact and legal rationale

The Court says Colorado II had also relied on an anti-circumvention theory, under which a donor could channel money through a political party and then have that money spent in coordination with a candidate. But the opinion says later rulings, including McCutcheon v. Federal Election Comm’n and Federal Election Comm’n v. Ted Cruz for Senate, recognize that other parts of the Act already address that risk.

Those provisions include earmarking rules that treat money directed through a party to a candidate as a contribution to that candidate, as well as disclosure rules requiring candidates and political parties to report contributions and campaign spending publicly. The Court says those measures, together with base contribution limits on candidates, serve the government’s anti-circumvention interests without unduly restricting core political party speech.

As a result, the Court overrules Colorado II, reverses the Sixth Circuit’s judgment and remands the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion. The ruling is likely to have broad implications for party committees, candidates and the campaign finance system in U.S. federal elections.

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