Supreme Court struck down coordinated party-spending limits in NRSC v. FEC, overturning Colorado II

On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in NRSC v. FEC to strike down decades-old federal limits on how much money political parties may spend in direct coordination with their own candidates. Writing for the six-justice conservative majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh held that the coordinated-expenditure limits in the Federal Election Campaign Act violated the First Amendment's protection of political speech, overturning the Court's 2001 decision in FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee ("Colorado II"), which had upheld those limits as a necessary safeguard against circumvention of individual contribution caps.

Colorado II had reasoned that without coordinated-spending limits, a party committee could serve as a conduit for donors to funnel unlimited sums directly into a candidate's campaign strategy, defeating the purpose of contribution limits altogether. The ruling removes that check: political parties may now spend without limit in direct coordination with the candidates they support, a Watergate-era-descended safeguard against big-money influence over federal elections.

Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Jackson, dissented, warning that the decision "reopens a route for donors to route far larger sums to candidates through party committees than direct contribution limits would otherwise permit." Republican officials, including NRCC Chair Rep. Richard Hudson and NRSC Chair Sen. Tim Scott, called the ruling "a decisive First Amendment victory," while Democratic Party leaders characterized it as "a win for billionaire donors and special interests who want more influence over the GOP agenda."