Political parties are entitled to discounts when they buy television ads in coordination with candidates, at least for now, the Supreme Court said Friday — potentially handing a near-term win to the GOP, which has a much larger pot of money than the Democratic Party heading into the midterm elections.
The ruling pauses an appeals court decision that blocked parties from receiving discounts on ads that they buy with individual candidates, who have long benefited from such discounts. The Supreme Court’s intervention will allow the GOP to stretch its coffers further in support of its candidates.
In an unsigned order, the Supreme Court said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit did not have jurisdiction to rule in the case. The high court also found that Republicans would suffer “irreparable harm” without its intervention, since broadcasters had already begun to rescind more favorable rates to the parties.
“Current and future rescissions will require the party committees to pay more for advertising space, thereby hampering their efforts to reach the electorate in the critical weeks leading up to the midterms,” the majority wrote.
Only Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted her dissent, writing that Republicans were “not likely to succeed on the merits of their argument that the Fourth Circuit lacked statutory jurisdiction.”
The Republican National Committee reported more than $130 million in the bank at the end of July, while the Democratic National Committee had just $16 million on hand and owed $18 million. The Republican House and Senate party committees also had a financial edge.
Under Federal Communications Commission rules, candidates have traditionally benefited from advertising discounts so they can reach more voters, in theory boosting democracy. The parties, however — which until recently were limited in how much they could spend in coordination with candidates — have not enjoyed such discounts in significant amounts.
But in June, the Supreme Court found that political parties could spend unlimited sums in coordination with candidates, on a range of expenses from meals to ad buys. The FCC concluded that political parties should enjoy the same discounted advertising rates as candidates when coordinating with them.
Democrats, including Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia and Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan, challenged that ruling. In August, a panel on the 4th Circuit sided with Democrats in finding that only candidates could receive the favorable rates.
Republicans appealed to the Supreme Court. On Friday, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, one of the parties in the case, cheered the high court’s ruling.
“Today’s decision ensures those efforts will be even further strengthened as the candidate rate on our coordinated television spending stretches our hard dollars further than ever before,” NRSC Communications Director Joanna Rodriguez said in an emailed statement. “Committees have received the lowest unit rate on coordinated spending for nearly five decades, and we will continue to fight the Democrats’ frivolous and partisan attempts to upend that precedent.”
Democrats accused their opponents of trying to inject more money into politics.
“Make no mistake: this is a concerted effort by Donald Trump and national Republicans to flood the midterm elections with money from billionaire donors,” Devan Barber, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and Will Van Nuys, deputy executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a joint statement.
“Now that we know the rules under which we are playing, we will continue to fight tooth-and-nail to win both chambers of Congress,” they added. “To the Republicans who have pushed for this, be careful what you wish for.”
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