Supreme Court Decision May Lead to More Political Committees Eligible for LUC

While it is still too early to tell, the Supreme Court’s recent decision in National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee v. FEC could impact the political committees that are eligible for the lowest unit change.  The decision opens the door for financial coordination between a candidate’s authorized campaign committee and third-party committees supporting the candidate.  The decision is expected to increase coordination and spending between committees.

For years, the FCC’s lowest unit charge rules applied only to a candidate or the candidate’s authorized campaign committee.  However, as we reported earlier this year, the FCC’s Media Bureau expanded the scope of the lowest unit charge to include additional committees that coordinate and engage in joint fundraising.  The Media Bureau’s Public Notice stated:

[T]he LUC requirements are applicable to (1) authorized committees, including authorized committees that engage in joint fundraising with legally qualified candidates for federal office, and (2) advertisements that qualify as coordinated expenditures of political parties and legally qualified candidates for federal office.

In the decision, the FCC stated explicitly that independent expenditures by political parties where there is no coordination with a candidate or an authorized campaign committee is still not subject to the lowest unit charge.  However, candidate-party coordinated campaign ads will be subject to the lowest unit charge rules.  It is worth noting that the Media Bureaus decision is currently under review by the full Commission.  

Prior to the Supreme Court decision, the amount of money devoted to coordinated candidate-party campaign ads was relatively small. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the door for greater coordination, we can expect the amount spent by coordinated candidate party advertising to increase.    For example, there are federal and state regulations limiting the amount of a contribution to a candidates authorized committee.  This is not the case with political committees that rely on “soft” money.  Given the new ability of political parties and candidate committees to coordinate, we can expect these operations to have more money to obtain advertising.  Thus, based on the Media Bureau’s decision last March, we can expect an increase in the number of party committees looking to qualify for rates at the lowest unit charge.

You can see the FCC’s decision from last March here.

You can see the Supreme Court’s decision here.

You can find an excellent analysis of this issue from noted communications attorney David Oxenford here.