Political parties exist to advance the electoral prospects of their nominees. Yet federal law sharply caps how much a party may spend in coordination with its own candidate. Those limits strike at the most effective and accountable form of political advocacy: parties speaking with their chosen standard-bearers. This Term the Supreme Court will consider a challenge to the constitutionality of those limits in the case NRSC v. FEC, and Cato has filed an amicus brief urging the Court to strike down those limits.

As our brief explains, speech between a political party and its own candidates is at the core of the First Amendment. The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that the government’s only legitimate interest in restricting campaign finance is preventing quid pro quo corruption or its appearance. But coordinated party spending doesn’t create that risk. Parties are transparent institutions with publicly reported finances, broad membership, and ongoing accountability to voters. Treating party-candidate collaboration as inherently suspicious turns the First Amendment on its head, penalizing the very coordination that informs and mobilizes the electorate. The restrictions at issue do not prevent corruption; instead, they prevent parties and candidates from exercising their constitutional right to speak and work together.

Modern doctrine has moved decisively away from broad speech restrictions related to candidates. Decisions like Citizens United v. FEC (2010), McCutcheon v. FEC (2014), and FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate (2022) reaffirm that the First Amendment protects robust political advocacy. The outlier is FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee (2001), a case known as Colorado II. That decision upheld coordinated-expenditure caps. But that decision is incompatible with the Supreme Court’s contemporary First Amendment jurisprudence and should be overruled. Its reasoning is indefensible, and its holding has been almost entirely washed away by subsequent decisions.

As our brief lays out, the limits at issue fail any form of heightened scrutiny. They burden the heart of political expression and association—speech by parties and their candidates about elections—while doing little or nothing to prevent the only corruption interest the Court recognizes. Because they limit the parties’ ability to support their nominees, they diminish the autonomy and the effectiveness of both parties and candidates. Voters are therefore hindered (or entirely prevented) from receiving the information that parties and candidates seek to communicate. Such limits do not protect democracy—they obstruct the self-government the First Amendment is meant to secure.

Furthermore, history underscores the importance of political parties in furthering free expression. From the Founding onward, Americans have pooled resources to speak collectively about public affairs. The First Amendment protects not just solitary pamphleteers but also associations that combine funds to reach voters. Parties are a crucial vehicle of American self-government. The Constitution does not permit Congress to prevent parties from carrying out their central mission.

These limits are fatally flawed, not only because they impermissibly intrude on constitutionally protected First Amendment activities, but also because they are demonstrably ineffective and counterproductive. Initially, they hobble political parties; ultimately, they hobble self-government. The restrictions rest on an idiosyncratic theory holding that coordination between parties and candidates is somehow corrupting. The Supreme Court should repudiate that theory and protect our First Amendment freedoms by striking down the coordination limits and overruling Colorado II.