CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS

In National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission, U.S. Supreme Court Slip Op. of June 30, 2026, the Court invalidated statutory limits on the campaign expenditures of political parties when their spending is coordinated with the campaign expenditures of individual candidates for office. The Court ruled that statutory limits on such “coordinated party/candidate” campaign expenses violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The First Amendment, adopted in 1791, reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Nothing in that language prohibits the enactment of laws that restrict the financing of political campaigns. Nevertheless, the Court reasoned that statutory limits on a political party’s campaign expenditures “abridge political parties’ freedom of speech,” “[b]ecause ‘virtually every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society requires the expenditure of money.’” While that observation may be true today, it has nothing to do with the “original intent” of the First Amendment.

In 1791, partisan campaigning for political office was practically unknown. Three years earlier, George Washington had won the first election for President of the United States without campaigning (and by unanimous vote). He was about to win the second election for President the same way. Campaign expenses, and their regulation, were not on people’s minds in 1791. What was on people’s minds at that time was the century-long tradition of immunizing lawmakers in Congress or in Parliament from punishment or liability for speaking their minds on political matters. See U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 6 (the Speech or Debate Clause); see also the English Bill of Rights of 1689 (the Speech and Debate Clause). To preserve the “consent of the governed” promised in the Declaration of Independence, the people behind the First Amendment wanted to extend the privilege of “free speech” to themselves and to their fellow citizens. Statutory limits on partisan campaign spending by political parties do nothing to “abridge” that fundamental right.

Without any other clearly apparent clue to the First Amendment’s original intent, the Court’s musing about the need for unlimited political party spending misses the point of the First Amendment. The Amendment protects the people, not endless political advertising. Nonetheless, the Court’s ruling in the subject Case is now part of the Constitutional Law of the United States and must be followed until the Case is overruled by a differently composed Supreme Court.

/s/ Dan D. Rhea