Vice President-elect JD Vance and Republican committees requested the Supreme Court docket to overturn federal limits that prohibit political events from coordinating spending with candidates on the grounds that they violate the First Modification.
Limits on contributions to candidates are a lot decrease than they’re to get together committees such because the Nationwide Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and the Nationwide Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), that are additionally plaintiffs together with former Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio).
“A political party exists to get its candidates elected. Yet Congress has severely restricted how much parties can spend on their own campaign advertising if done in cooperation with those very candidates,” the plaintiffs wrote within the petition made public Friday.
The Federal Election Fee (FEC) declined to touch upon litigation.
Whereas a candidate can solely settle for $3,300 per particular person per election through the 2024 cycle, the NRSC might absorb as a lot as $578,200 from a single donor per cycle.
Limits on how a lot spending get together committees can coordinate with candidates have been initially set partially to protect in opposition to corruption and outsized affect from a small group of rich people.
The U.S. sixth Circuit Court docket of Appeals in September dominated in opposition to Vance and the get together committees, however solely as a result of the Supreme Court docket by no means overturned a 2001 resolution upholding the bounds.
“Even when the Supreme Court embraces a new line of reasoning in a given area and even when that reasoning allegedly undercuts the foundation of a decision, it remains the Court’s job, not ours, to overrule it,” Chief Choose Jeffrey Sutton wrote on the time.
The plaintiffs urged the courtroom to take up the case and overturn the choice, arguing the bounds are an affront to the First Modification rights of political events and candidates.
“And that constitutional violation has harmed our political system by leading donors to send their funds elsewhere, fueling ‘the rise of narrowly focused “super PACs”‘ and an attendant ‘fall of political events’ energy’ within the political market, which has contributed to a spike in political polarization and fragmentation throughout the board,” the plaintiffs wrote.
Zach Schonfeld contributed.
