WASHINGTON, DC – Following oral argument at the Supreme Court this morning in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, a case in which the Court is considering whether to strike down a law that limits the amount of money a national political party committee may spend in coordination with federal candidates for elected office, CAC Senior Appellate Counsel Miriam Becker-Cohen issued the following reaction:

As we explained in the amicus brief we filed in this case, our nation’s Founders were quite literally obsessed with rooting out corruption in government. Yet today the Court’s conservatives asked not a single question about how the Federal Election Campaign Act’s cap on coordinated party expenditures fits into that national tradition. Instead, their questions primarily focused on how the challenged statute fits into the modern campaign finance regime—which itself has been fundamentally reshaped by this Court’s decisions chipping away at campaign finance regulation.

That is not how the Court’s analysis should work. The Framers vested Congress, not the courts, with authority to make policy choices in this arena. Exercising that authority, Congress enacted coordinated party spending limits years ago to stem quid pro quo corruption in government. The Court already upheld those limits once. It should not now second-guess Congress’s judgment.

Constitutional Accountability Center Director of the Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Program David Gans added this reaction:

Beginning with Citizens United v. FEC, the Roberts Court has repeatedly disregarded the Constitution’s text and history, obliterated the foundational interest in rooting out corruption and ensuring integrity in government, and harmed our democracy by opening the door to unlimited spending by billionaires and corporations. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor aptly observed during this morning’s argument, “every time we interfere with the congressional design [for campaign finance law], we make matters worse.” Now the conservative supermajority of the Roberts Court is threatening to strike a huge blow to what remains of federal campaign finance law and overrule its own precedent that recognizes that limits on coordinated spending, which are functionally contributions, help prevent quid pro corruption and the appearance of such corruption.