US Supreme Court scraps party spending caps in major campaign finance ruling

Washington,UPDATED: Jun 30, 2026 21:06 IST

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a federal election law that had limited how much political parties could spend in coordination with candidates for Congress and the presidency, removing restrictions that had been in place for more than 50 years.

The ruling came in a Republican-backed case that included Vice President JD Vance and once again saw the court's conservative justices form the majority in a decision on campaign finance. The court's 2010 Citizens United ruling had already allowed unlimited independent spending in federal elections.

The limits on coordinated party spending were meant to stop large donors from getting around caps on direct contributions to candidates by funnelling unlimited money to political parties, with the understanding that it would be spent for a candidate's benefit. The Supreme Court had earlier upheld those restrictions in 2001.

The lawsuit was filed in Ohio in 2022 by the Republican campaign committees for House and Senate candidates. Vance, who was then a senator from Ohio, and then-Representative Steve Chabot joined the case. After President Donald Trump began his second term, the Federal Election Commission stopped defending the law and instead joined Republicans in asking the court to strike it down.

Democrats had urged the court to keep the law in place, even though there is broad agreement that the spending caps have weakened political parties at a time when other organisations can spend without limit. Last year, the cap on coordinated party spending in Senate races ranged from USD 127,200 in several small-population states to nearly USD 4 million in California. For House races, the limits were USD 127,200 in states with only one representative and USD 63,600 elsewhere.

The ideological divide on campaign finance was visible when the court heard arguments in December. "Every time we interfere with the congressional design, we make matters worse," Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who dissented in Citizens United and other campaign finance cases, said. Justice Samuel Alito, who was in the Citizens United majority, described that ruling as "much maligned, I think unfairly maligned" and said it had helped "level the playing field" by extending the right to spend freely beyond media companies.

With Tuesday's ruling, the court removed long-standing limits on coordinated spending by political parties and candidates, in the latest decision to reshape the rules on money in US elections.

With PTI Inputs

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