The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take up a case initially filed by then-Senate candidate JD Vance and other Republicans seeking to lift the cap on how much political parties may spend in coordination with candidates.
The case will likely be heard in the fall or early 2026.
Campaign finance experts and the Democratic Party have argued that lifting the caps would effectively open a loophole around limits on how much donors may give to federal candidates. Deep-pocketed donors could instead give tens of thousands of dollars each year to party committees with the understanding that the money be spent on a given candidate.
In 2022, Vance and several party committees – including the National Republican Senate Committee, which helps elect Senate Republicans – challenged the law as a violation of the First Amendment. Vance would go on to win the Senate seat from Ohio and was ultimately elected vice president.
Republicans say the caps are hopelessly inconsistent with the Supreme Court’s modern campaign finance doctrine and that they have “harmed our political system by leading donors to send their funds elsewhere,” such as super PACs, which can raise unlimited funds but do not coordinate with candidates.
“We have come to a point at which campaign finance regulations reviewed by the Supreme Court are almost presumptively unconstitutional,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. “It’s very difficult to imagine that the justices agreed to take up this case to buck that trend, rather than continue it.”
In a highly unusual move, the Justice Department – which is typically responsible for defending federal law – told the Supreme Court in May that it will not defend the caps. The Justice Department said the litigation is “the rare case that warrants an exception to that general approach” of defending a law.
“This case involves a campaign-finance restriction that violates core First Amendment rights,” the Trump administration told the Supreme Court.
Democrats, who are seeking to intervene to defend the law, argue that the Supreme Court already decided the question in a 2001 precedent. Democrats say the appeal, if successful, would “blow open the cap on the amount of money that donors can funnel to candidates.”
The cap at issue involves money spent by parties, such as on advertising, in coordination with a candidate. For 2024, the limits ranged from $123,600 to $3,772,100 for Senate candidates, and from $61,800 to $123,600 for House candidates, according to court records. The caps change based on the office sought, the voting-age population and inflation.
A divided 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals begrudgingly upheld the caps but made clear it might have ruled differently it was “faced with a clear playing field.” US Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, chief judge for the 6th Circuit, wrote that in “a hierarchical legal system, we must follow” the Supreme Court’s 2001 precedent unless the high court overrules it.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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