Episode 43: National Republican Senatorial Committee, et al. v. Federal Election Commission, et al.

National Republican Senatorial Committee, et al. v. Federal Election Commission, et al. argued before the Supreme Court of the United States on December 9, 2025. Argued by Noel Francisco (on behalf of National Republican Senatorial Committee), Sarah M. Harris (on behalf of the federal respondents in support of petitioners), Roman Martinez (Court-Appointed Amicus Curiae defending the law), and Marc Elias (Counsel for Intervenor-Respondents DNC, DSCC, and DCCC).  

Question Presented, from the Supreme Court docket: 

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. 52 U.S.C. § 30116(d).  

In an opinion by Chief Judge Sutton, a 10-judge majority of the en banc Sixth Circuit agreed that these so-called “coordinated party expenditure limits” stand in serious tension with recent First Amendment doctrine. App.10a-15a. It nevertheless upheld them as constitutional, both on their face and as applied to coordinated political advertising (“party coordinated communications”), believing the case to be controlled by FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, 533 U.S. 431 (2001) (Colorado II). In doing so, the majority acknowledged that in the 23 years since Colorado II, this Court “has tightened the free-speech restrictions on campaign finance regulation,” that “tension has emerged between the reasoning of Colorado II and the reasoning of later decisions of the Court,” and that relevant facts have “changed, most notably with 2014 amendments” to the limits and “the rise of unlimited spending by political action committees.” App.3a-4a, 11a. But it thought “any new assessment of the validity of the limits” remained the Supreme Court’s “province, not ours.” App.14a-15a.  

The question presented is:  

Whether the limits on coordinated party expenditures in 52 U.S.C. § 30116 violate the First Amendment, either on their face or as applied to party spending in connection with “party coordinated communications” as defined in 11 C.F.R. § 109.37. 

Resources:   

• Brief for the Petitioners NRSC 
• Brief for the Respondents FEC 
• Supreme Court Docket 
• Sixth Circuit Oral Argument Audio 
• Institute for Free Speech SCOTUS Amicus Brief 
• Campaign Regulations Are Unconstitutional, by Bradley A. Smith, The Wall Street Journal 

Listen to the argument here:   

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