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EuterpeThelo

(466 posts)
Tue Jun 30, 2026, 10:29 AM Tuesday

Supreme Court just gutted FEC v Colorado (campaign finance ruling from 2001) [View all]

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-621_h315.pdf

Text from SCOTUSBlog:

This was a challenge to a federal law that limits the amount of money that political parties can spend in coordination with a candidate for federal office. In 2001, in FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, the court upheld the limits by a vote of 5-4 – with Justice Clarence Thomas (the only member of that court now on the current court) writing for the dissent. When this case went to the court of appeals, it said, in essence, that the challengers had some good arguments, but that it was bound by the Supreme Court’s decision in the 2001 case. The Trump administration declined to defend the party-expenditure limits, so the justices appointed Roman Martinez, a former clerk to Chief Judge John Roberts and then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh, to do so.

In her dissenting opinion, Kagan argues that the majority "jettisons a rule needed to protect our democracy's integrity."
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