The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA) is the foundational law that governs money in politics to stem corruption in government. The centerpiece of FECA is its base limits on contributions to candidates, which the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld. In addition to those base contribution limits, FECA limits expenditures by national political party committees made in coordination with their federal candidates, recognizing that such expenditures are functionally the same as direct contributions to candidates. In 2001, the Supreme Court upheld this FECA provision in FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (“Colorado II”), explaining that coordinated party expenditures “are as useful to the candidate as cash,” and thus “may be restricted to minimize circumvention of contribution limits” and the quid pro quo corruption that could result from such circumvention. 

Yet in 2024, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and two legislators, including then-Senator J.D. Vance, challenged FECA’s coordinated party expenditure limits in the Southern District of Ohio, alleging that they violate the First Amendment. The district court certified the question to the en banc Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that FECA’s coordinated party expenditure limits do not violate the First Amendment under Colorado II. The plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to hear their case, and the Court agreed to do so. 

In October 2025, CAC filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to affirm the Sixth Circuit’s judgment and uphold FECA’s coordinated party expenditure limits. Our brief made two main points. 

First, the challenged law narrowly targets scenarios that pose a heightened risk of quid pro quo corruption, as well as the appearance thereof, and is consistent with the text and history of the Constitution. As our brief explains, corruption was a chief concern of the Framers as they drafted the Constitution. The Framers therefore established governmental structures and political systems to help the government withstand corruption and ensure that it would be independent of potentially corrupting influences. The Framers also included in the Constitution a number of specific and strongly worded gift, salary, and appointment restrictions targeted at minimizing discrete opportunities for corruption, including the Foreign Emoluments Clause, the Domestic Emoluments Clause, and the Ineligibility and Emoluments Clause. Finally, aware that the specific safeguards written into the Constitution might not be sufficient on their own to guard against corruption in elections in particular, the Framers drafted the Elections Clause to give Congress the tools to supplement those safeguards and address new abuses that might arise in the future. Consistent with this constitutional text and history, the Supreme Court has long recognized Congress’s legitimate and compelling interest in preventing both actual and apparent quid pro quo corruption. 

Second, the FECA provision at issue here specifically targets quid pro quo corruption and its appearance. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld FECA’s base contribution limits, which cap the amount any individual may donate directly to a candidate’s election committee. The base contribution limits prevent a situation in which a single donor may give vast amounts of money to a single candidate, making the candidate answerable to that constituent over others and thus more prone to grant that constituent political favors—the definition of quid pro quo corruption. For decades, the Court has recognized that spending made in coordination with a candidate should be treated as contributions to prevent attempts to circumvent FECA through prearranged or coordinated expenditures amounting to disguised contributions. Because of the heightened risk of quid pro quo corruption and its appearance associated with coordinated expenditures, the Court upheld the precise FECA provision challenged here—limiting party expenditures made in coordination with candidates—a quarter of a century ago in Colorado II. Petitioners cite no valid reason for overruling Colorado II—indeed, there is today even more real-world evidence demonstrating how allowing unlimited coordinated party expenditures would increase opportunities for quid pro quo corruption.