The Supreme Court on Friday endorsed a request from Republican campaign groups that want to buy discounted TV advertising for this year’s midterms, the latest in a series of emergency rulings from the high court benefiting the GOP.
The decision effectively upholds guidance issued by the Federal Communications Commission in March that allowed the campaign arms of House and Senate Republicans to pay lower ad rates that were previously reserved only for candidates.
The court’s order will primarily benefit Republicans, who generally raise more money through party committees than Democrats.
Over the dissent of liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court said that the challenge to the guidance was premature. The GOP groups had said that broadcasters were rescinding the cheaper ad rates based on a lower court’s decision blocking the guidance.
“Current and future recissions will require the party committees to pay more for advertising space, thereby hampering their efforts to reach the electorate in the critical weeks leading up to the midterms,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion. “That injury, which implicates their First Amendment rights to speak and coordinate their political activities freely, cannot be remedied after the fact through refunds or reimbursements.”
