The Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in a campaign finance case that could change the way fundraising works for the 2026 midterm elections.
The case was originally brought by Vice President JD Vance when he was an Ohio senator and centers around whether party committees can coordinate spending more openly with political campaigns. Right now there are limits on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates.
Vance filed the lawsuit in 2022, along with former Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, with the backing of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Currently, donors can give less to individual candidates than they can to party committees like the NRSC and NRCC.
Vance is challenging the spending limits on First Amendment grounds.
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Vance and Chabot last year, and the Supreme Court is considering whether to uphold or overturn that decision.
Will Supreme Court relax campaign spending restrictions?
The Supreme Court has long debated what restrictions can be placed on campaign spending while still upholding the Constitution’s free speech protections.
In 2001, the justices upheld the restrictions being challenged in this case.
When the Trump administration took control earlier this year, the Federal Election Commission decided to agree with the Republican side and not defend the lower court’s decision before the Supreme Court, so the justices appointed Roman Martinez, a former clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts, to argue the case.
Martinez argued that the justices should throw the case out since it isn’t clear that Vance is going to run for president. Vance only has legal standing in the case if he plans to run for office again, Martinez said.
Without another run, Vance has no injury in the case, he said.
Over the summer, the Democratic National Committee filed a motion to intervene in the case, and so Andrea Levien, general counsel for the DNC, also argued to uphold the lower court’s decision in oral arguments on Tuesday alongside DNC lawyer Mark Elias.
Arguing on behalf of Vance and the Republican political committees was NRSC lawyer and former solicitor general Noel John Francisco, while current Solicitor General John Sauer argued on behalf of the FEC.
DNC opposes campaign finance change
The DNC leaned heavily on precedent, saying if the Supreme Court overturns the lower court’s decision it will “fundamentally reshape the campaign finance regime.”
Levien argued that by siding with a political party, the Trump administration’s role in the case is unique.
“I think what is very remarkable about this case is not just the fact that Republicans are coming back just 24 years later to get the Supreme Court to overturn a very clear case from only two decades ago, but the fact that the Trump administration has stepped in to not only defend a duly passed campaign finance law that’s been on the book for years, but is now just writing a brief that sides with the Republican Party,” she said.
“That is one of the reasons why the Democratic Party has stepped in to get involved, to defend this law, because the Trump administration is abdicating its duty to defend the law, and that, I think, is a pretty unique situation for us to be in and I think one that should be concerning to everyone,” Levien continued.
On behalf of the Trump administration, Sauer argued the contributions limits are capping party spending at a “tiny fraction of the total amount spent on modern campaigns.” Parties have to guess what their candidates prefer on issues since they cannot discuss ideas to campaign on, and “run a risk of disseminating speech” that candidates find “unhelpful or even counterproductive.”
The FEC restrictions stem from the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971. Parties can make unlimited independent expenditures supporting a candidate, but there are limits on how much they can spend in coordination with a candidate’s campaign.
Current spending caps vary based on which office the candidate is seeking, the number of voters and inflation.
The lawyers for the Republican party committees argued that if the court were to strike down the precedent, it wouldn’t impact corruption or lead to more donor influence.
That sentiment was echoed by the Manhattan Institute fellow Ilya Shapiro.
“Problem is, we now have a lot of experience with this kind of rule, and there’s no difference in the level of corruption or voter confidence in election integrity, depending on whether a state does or does not have this restriction, and Congress has introduced a bunch of loopholes in legislative amendments,” Shapiro said in a video after oral arguments. “Luckily, it looks like the justices are going to get rid of it.”
The justices asked tough questions of Francisco, who argued on behalf of the NRSC. Chief Justice John Roberts and justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan all pressed Francisco.
Sotomayor said there’s a lack of evidence about whether party spending can lead to more corruption. She also noted that Francisco, who was extensively questioned relative to the DNC’s attorney, argues that every time the Supreme Court interferes in a similar matter, like in the Citizens United case, they end up “amplifying the voice of corporations but diminishing another voice, that of the party.”
“Now you want to now tinker some more and try to raise the voice of one party. Our tinkering does more harm than it does good,” Sotomayor said.
“I personally never think free speech makes things worse,” Francisco replied. “I think it virtually always makes it better.”
The justices are expected to hand down a decision in the case by the end of its term in June 2026.