How The Supreme Court’s Party-Coordination Ruling Could Reshape U.S. Politics – OpEd
Supreme Court Overturns Limits on Party-Candidate Coordination — In a 6-3 decision, the Court struck down spending limits on political parties coordinating with candidates, ruling that they violated First Amendment rights.
The Ruling Will Likely Strengthen Political Parties — By allowing parties to spend more in coordination with candidates, the decision is expected to make institutional parties more powerful, countering the fragmentation caused by decades of progressive “reforms” like direct primaries.
This Could Lead to a Healthier, Less Polarized System — Stronger parties are likely to nominate more electable, moderate candidates rather than extremists chosen by primary voters, while reducing the influence of unaccountable super PACs and dark money. The author argues this is a net positive despite concerns about money in politics.
Although other term-ending Supreme Court decisions, such as on mail-in voting or birthright citizenship, have gotten greater media attention, the Court’s overturning of limits on the amount of money political parties can spend in coordination with any one candidate is a very important one for the future health of the American political system. The Court, in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, by a vote of 6-3, overturned its 2001 ruling in Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, upholding the same spending limits, which had been a 5-4 ruling in the opposite direction.
Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, overruled the previous court decision by saying that the spending limits in the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 violated the........
