In a major decision today, the Supreme Court in NRSC v. FEC struck down longstanding limits on “coordinated party expenditures” that restricted the amounts political parties could spend in coordination with federal candidates. With this decision, national party committees and the federal accounts of state parties can now spend unlimited funds to support individual federal candidates in coordination with those candidates.
In this client alert, we outline the expected effects of this decision. Most clearly, it will shift the balance of campaign spending power toward the national party committees, which had decreased in importance since the rise of outside spending vehicles, including Super PACs, in recent years.