Money has always been one of the key factors in determining the outcome of elections. But despite this, political parties are not able to simply buy elections. Republicans have been making efforts to change that since forever, and they now have their best chance. The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will take on the case in which the GOP is challenging limits on “coordinated spending.”
Freedom of Speech or Drowning Out the Will of the Voters
There is no limit on how much money political parties can spend on a candidate. However, their coordinated spending, including funds for travel costs, consultant services, and renting venues, is capped depending on the elections. Limits range from just over $60K for House races to around $4 million for Senate elections. The Republicans claim that this is restricting “party committees’ support for its own candidates” and that “coordinated expenditure limits violate the First Amendment.”
The Democrats, on the other hand, want to keep the limits. Three Democratic committees want to intervene and will act as defendants in the case. According to their joint statement, “Republicans know their grassroots support is drying up across the country, and they want to drown out the will of the voters.”
Conservative Supreme Court Wants to See More Money in Election Races
The Supreme Court is in its conservative stage, which could play a significant role in the outcome of the case. With the Trump administration and Federal Election Commission standing behind the push to eliminate spending limits, there is not much room for optimism. Richard Hasen, an election law expert from UCLA, predicted that the decision will be in favor of Republicans. According to him, this outcome makes sense “in light of the prevalence of super PAC spending that has undermined political parties and done nothing to limit (and in fact increased) corruption and inequality.”
The Supreme Court originally upheld the limits in 2001 with the ruling in Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee. Since then, decisions in other cases have opened the path for more money to enter the elections races. In 2010, the Supreme Court removed restrictions on the financial backing of candidates by corporations with its decision in Citizens United v. FEC. In 2014, the ruling in McCutcheon v. FEC removed the limits on how much money individual donors can spend to support national parties in a two-year period.
Bigger Spending Doesn’t Equal a Bigger Democracy
Bigger spending on campaigns doesn’t equal a bigger democracy. It only opens up possibilities to deceive voters. It will transform the election into a money race where the ones with deeper pockets will win.
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