National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Comm’n · ¶128

None of this is a new insight. (Indeed, to call it even an old insight is to understate its obviousness.) Some 25 years ago, this Court in Colorado II upheld limits on a party’s coordinated expenditures against a First Amendment challenge identical to the one presented here. 533 U. S., at 465. And the Court did so on exactly the grounds I have laid out above—because “unlimited coordinated spending by a party raises the risk of corruption (and its appearance) through circumvention of valid contribution limits.” Id., at 456. In so holding, the Court recognized the strong role parties play in politics, and reaffirmed its holding that a party’s independent expenditures could not constitutionally be limited. See id., at 444. But the Court drew a sharp line between those expenditures and a party’s coordinated ones, based on their value to the candidate’s campaign. “[A] party’s coordinated…

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