Supreme Court To Hear GOP Free Speech Challenge To Campaign Spending Restrictions

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a Republican challenge to campaign finance regulations that restricts political parties from coordinating campaign spending with political candidates.

The challenge from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) argues that restricting the amount parties can spend in coordination with candidates violates the First Amendment by restricting speech. The court is expected to hear arguments on the case when its fall 2025 term begins.

“The government should not restrict a party committee’s support for its own candidates. These coordinated expenditure limits violate the First Amendment, and we appreciate the Court’s decision to hear our case,” said NRSC Chair Tim Scott and National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Richard Hudson. “Coordinated spending continues to be a critical part of winning campaigns, and the NRSC and NRCC will ensure we are in the strongest possible position to win in 2026 and beyond.”

The case was originally brought by the NRSC and now-Vice President J.D. Vance back in 2022 in a challenge to restrictions on coordinated spending introduced by the 1972 Federal Election Campaign Act.

In September 2024, the restrictions were upheld by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In its decision, the appeals court said that the NRSC made “fair points” about speech restrictions; it could not side with them because of previous Supreme Court precedent.

The precedent in question was the 2001 FEC vs. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee decision, which ruled that limits on coordinated spending do not violate the First Amendment.

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“The key reality is that the Supreme Court has not overruled the 2001 Colorado decision or the deferential review it applied to these provisions of the Act. In a hierarchical legal system, we must follow that decision and thus must deny the plaintiffs’ First Amendment facial and as applied challenges,” the Sixth Circuit Court wrote in its September decision.

In its December 2024 petition to the Supreme Court, the NRSC said that Congress “has built a wall of separation between party and candidate, forcing party committees to figure out how to get their candidates elected without hearing from them.”

“Should this Court decline to take this case, future litigants will interpret that decision as proof that, whatever the Court has said in more recent campaign-finance cases, it is content to leave the political parties as second-class holders of First Amendment rights,” they wrote.

The Trump administration has signaled support for the challenge, while the Supreme Court allowed the Democratic National Committee to intervene in support of the campaign finance restrictions.