Supreme Court backs Republican request to lower TV ad rates

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

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.”

Under federal law, candidates are entitled to deeply discounted ad rates in the run up to an election. Guidance this year from the FCC extended that benefit to other campaign entities, like the National Republican Senatorial Committee, that run TV ads on behalf of candidates across the country. Both Republicans and Democrats have long made use of those groups.

The Republican groups told the Supreme Court in their emergency appeal that they had already budgeted “tens of millions of dollars” in advertising based on the FCC guidance. A divided 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law clearly limited the lower rate benefit only to candidates. Those lower rates, according to court documents, are set to take effect on Friday.

The Trump administration, eager to keep Republican control of Congress, supported the GOP groups at the Supreme Court. The Justice Department argued that the FCC guidance wouldn’t harm the Democratic candidates who sued because the rule is applied universally.

Four Democratic candidates sued over the FCC’s decision: Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet of Michigan, former Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, and former Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina. The campaign arm for House and Senate Republicans intervened to defend the FCC’s decision.

The ad rates case is closely tied to another the Supreme Court decided this summer. In that case, the court’s 6-3 conservative majority rolled back longstanding limits on how much political parties may coordinate with federal candidates. Since the 1970s, political party committees were capped at how much money they could spend in coordination with a campaign. The court ruled that those caps violated the First Amendment.

乔纳森·恩斯特/路透社

最高法院周五批准了共和党竞选团体提出的请求，允许他们以折扣价购买今年中期选举的电视广告。这是最高法院一系列有利于共和党的紧急裁决中的最新一项。

该决定实际上支持了联邦通信委员会 3 月份发布的指导意见，该意见允许众议院和参议院共和党的竞选机构支付较低的广告费率，而这些费率以前只适用于候选人。

法院的命令将主要有利于共和党人，因为共和党人通常通过党委会筹集的资金比民主党人多。

尽管自由派大法官凯坦吉·布朗·杰克逊持反对意见，但法院仍裁定，对该指导意见的挑战为时尚早。共和党团体曾表示，广播公司取消低价广告费率是基于下级法院阻止该指导意见生效的裁决。

法院在一份未署名的意见书中写道：“当前和未来的撤回将迫使各政党委员会支付更多广告位费用，从而阻碍他们在期中选举前的关键几周接触选民的努力。这种损害涉及他们受宪法第一修正案保护的言论自由和政治活动协调权，事后无法通过退款或补偿来弥补。”

根据联邦法律，候选人在选举前有权享受大幅折扣的广告价格。今年，联邦通信委员会（FCC）发布的指导意见将这项优惠扩大到其他竞选机构，例如代表全国各地候选人投放电视广告的全国共和党参议员委员会。共和党和民主党长期以来都利用这些机构的服务。

共和党团体在向最高法院提交的紧急上诉中表示，他们已根据联邦通信委员会（FCC）的指导意见，在广告预算中拨出了“数千万美元”。美国第四巡回上诉法院以微弱多数裁定，该法律明确规定，较低的费率优惠仅适用于候选人。根据法庭文件，这些较低的费率将于周五生效。

特朗普政府急于保住共和党对国会的控制权，因此在最高法院支持共和党团体。司法部辩称，联邦通信委员会的指导意见不会损害提起诉讼的民主党候选人的利益，因为该规则具有普遍适用性。

四位民主党候选人就联邦通信委员会（FCC）的决定提起诉讼：他们分别是密歇根州众议员克里斯汀·麦克唐纳·里维特、俄亥俄州前参议员谢罗德·布朗、佐治亚州参议员乔恩·奥索夫和北卡罗来纳州前州长罗伊·库珀。众议院和参议院共和党竞选机构介入此案，为FCC的决定辩护。

广告费率案与最高法院今年夏天审理的另一起案件密切相关。在那起案件中，最高法院以6比3的保守派多数推翻了长期以来对政党与联邦候选人协调程度的限制。自20世纪70年代以来，政党委员会在与竞选活动协调方面的支出金额受到限制。法院裁定，这些限制违反了宪法第一修正案。