On December 9, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in a major campaign finance case, National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, that could further erode limitations on the free flow of money into politics. At issue are the federal limits on “coordinated expenditures”—caps on funds used by political parties in coordination with a federal candidate.
Background
The Federal Election Campaign Act (“FECA”) regulates federal elections by imposing disclosure requirements, campaign contribution limits, public financing, and campaign expenditure limits. A single donor attempting to maximize her influence over a specific candidate has several options. She can contribute: (i) directly to a candidate’s committee; (ii) to a political party committee; (iii) to a traditional PAC; or (iv) to an independent expenditure-only PAC (“Super PAC”) in an unlimited amount. Since the 1970s, various contribution limits have been upheld as Constitutional to mitigate against actual and perceived quid pro quo corruption, and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) has designed rules to prevent donors from circumventing the limits.
The plaintiff-petitioners here challenge one such anti-circumvention provision—the state-by-state limitations on coordinated party expenditures. FECA grants political parties a special role in the campaign finance regime, permitting them to coordinate expenditures with candidates in amounts far higher than what individual donors and outside groups are permitted. For Ohio, where this case originated, a national political party committee could have coordinated expenditures with a candidate up to $61,800 in the House of Representatives and $1,138,000 in the Senate, much higher even than the $5,000 the same committee could have contributed to the candidate directly. The limits on coordinated party expenditures are often compared to the limits on direct contributions, because they permit donors to circumvent the lower limits on direct donations. Without limitations on how much the parties can coordinate on spending, the political parties would just leverage their budgets to pay for individual campaigns’ expenses. If these limits on coordinated party expenditures were to fall, a wealthy donor could make large contributions to a political party intent on assisting a single candidate. Then, the candidate could coordinate (or, in practice, direct) the use of those party funds to pay his campaign’s bills, thus circumventing the contribution limits that otherwise would have applied to that donor.
Oral Arguments
Two of the conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court were difficult to read during this oral argument. Justice Gorsuch was entirely silent throughout more than two hours of debate, while Justice Barrett asked one unrevealing question. However, there were some skeptical questions from Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh:
- Chief Justice Roberts hints that spending limits are contribution limits
- The Chief Justice signaled that he considered coordinated expenditures to be synonymous to in-kind contributions to candidates, the logic of which would support retaining the limits. Roberts called the distinction a legal “fiction,” saying, “I don’t see that there’s much difference between giving [a candidate] the money to let him” deliver a message “and doing it yourself.”
- Ghosts of Citizens United: “weakened” political parties
- Justice Alito asked a question where he referred to the “unfairly maligned” Citizens United decision, characterizing it as having “level[ed] the playing field” between media companies and all other corporations. Citizens United is a 2010 case where the Court struck down limits on independent expenditures by corporations and labor unions in a controversial 5-4 decision. Justice Kavanagh, who rose to the court in 2018, repeatedly expressed concerns that the political parties “are very much weakened and disadvantaged compared to” Super PACs. Justice Sotomayor also observed that that Citizens United and McCutcheon “ended up . . . amplifying the voice of corporations but diminishing another voice, that of the party.”
- Without a limiting principle, “the dominos are going to fall”
- Justice Kavanaugh pressed the Republican attorneys for a limiting principle on their positions, and for good reason. The arguments revealed the inherent challenge the Republican attorneys faced in arguing for the elimination of the coordinated expenditure limits without also logically concluding that the other anti-circumvention measures—contribution limits to the parties and the anti-coordination rule applicable to Super PACs—should also fall. Noel Francisco, former Solicitor General in the first Trump Administration, conceded to Justice Jackson: “I am not going to say that my clients are not going to come back and try to challenge other limitations.” Roman Martinez, a former clerk for Justices Kavanaugh and Roberts, was appointed by the Supreme Court to defend the 6th Circuit’s ruling. Martinez called this case the “camel’s nose under the tent,” arguing that, if the Court agreed with the petitioners here, they’re “going to be deluged with petitions, the dominos are going to fall, and you’re going to have to reconstruct campaign finance law from the ground up.”
- A wolf in wolf’s clothing
- Justices Kavanagh, Jackson, and Kagan directed pointed questions towards the Republican attorneys regarding what campaign finance laws they will challenge next, should they succeed here. Repeatedly, the Republican attorneys demurred and refused to commit not to challenge whatever contribution caps remain, even as they cited them now as sufficient “prophylactics” to protect against corruption. As Ramon Martinez observed: “[T]his wolf comes as a wolf…they’re going to keep litigating to knock down every single one of the restrictions, and that includes the limits on donors to candidates directly.”
- Will he or won’t he? J.D. Vance’s standing to sue
- Mr. Martinez admirably prosecuted the argument on standing, making the case that Vice President Vance has no live controversy to litigate because he has not announced that he is running for office and Trump has barred the FEC from enforcing the limits. The Justices conveyed revealing thoughts on how candidates do and do not behave, but the Court overall seemed unlikely to take up standing as an offramp. At one point Martinez, a former Court clerk, did seem to hint at the incoherence of the Court’s modern standing jurisprudence: “If any other plaintiff in this Court told you that his injury is speculative, that it’s uncertain, that it’s premature, that it might happen and it might not happen, they wouldn’t have a prayer under Article III” of the Constitution. “The same rules apply to the Vice President.”
- Democratic attorney clarifies Super PACs, $1 million donor caps, & party-building
- One of Mr. Francisco’s main arguments was that quid pro quo corruption is “already prevented by other things,” pointing to: the $44,000 base party limit, the federal rule on earmarked contributions, disclosure requirements, and the bribery laws. Democratic attorney Marc Elias argued for the DNC that earmarking doesn’t work, that actual contribution limits are $1 million, and an unfavorable decision would undermine party-building. Elias first predicted that parties would actually be hurt by an unfavorable decision, converting them into “mere paymasters to settle invoices from campaign vendors” to the detriment of party-building activities like voter registration and infrastructure building. Regarding the other “prophylactics,” Elias argued that joint fundraisers are “an exception to the earmarking rule” because the event solicitations are required to identify the candidates benefitted. He also clarified that, while candidates can only solicit $5,000 for a Super PAC, “there are joint fundraising committees in which an individual can give over a million dollars to a committee that bears that candidate’s name.” Downplaying the role of disclosure requirements in preventing corruption, Elias concluded that, if this limit is eliminated, “other than the bribery law, I don’t think anything is left.”
The Takeaway
Despite some minor indications otherwise, and that there was only one question asked between Justices Barrett and Gorsuch, the fact remains that the Roberts Court has not taken up the merits of a single federal campaign finance where it has not sided with the parties challenging those laws. Should the Supreme Court side with the Republicans in this case, political party committees (i.e. NRSC, DCCC, etc.) would be able to make unlimited in-kind contributions to federal candidates by coordinating spending. Proponents of this result may argue that the campaign finance system still imposes a $44,300 limit on contributions to the parties, which mitigates against corruption. However, as Justices Kagan and Sotomayor pointed out, this ignores the reality that federal candidates can already exploit joint fundraising committees to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars above the contribution limits. For instance, in 2024, the Joe Biden Victory Fund collected checks of $929,600 from individual donors.
A favorable decision for the Republican Petitioners will therefore likely result in a lot more political spending flowing through the party committees. Such a decision will also signal even greater jurisprudential fallout by serving as a logical precursor to the overturning of limits on party contributions and on coordination with outside groups.
Finally, the argument about Constitutional standing was revealing in several ways regarding where the Court is headed on the case argued the prior day, Trump v. Slaughter. In Slaughter, the Court is widely expected to dramatically rework, if not overturn, a landmark precedent known as Humphrey’s Executor. Since 1936, Humphrey’s Executor permitted Congress to insulate the heads of independent agencies from at-will removal by the President. Throughout the argument in the NRSC case, it appeared to be assumed that an Administration could or could not direct the FEC to initiate enforcement actions. This portends a post-Slaughter campaign finance environment where a more partisan FEC populated entirely by Commissioners beholden to the President could launch enforcement proceedings against candidates and groups that the White House disfavors. In that type of environment, groups engaging in electoral work in 2026 should continue to rigorously adhere to federal election laws and maintain policies and procedures to ensure compliance.
A decision in both cases is expected in the summer of 2026.
Brian Farnkoff is an Of Counsel attorney at Bernstein Shur, where his practice focuses on U.S. election law and campaign finance. Based in Washington, DC, Brian brings deep experience from inside government and national political campaigns, helping advocacy organizations, candidates, and committees navigate complex regulatory and strategic terrain with confidence.
The firm’s Political Campaigns & Public Affairs Consulting group advises campaigns, PACs, parties, and advocacy organizations at every stage of the political lifecycle, combining legal insight with real-world campaign and policy experience.