WASHINGTON — A high-stakes challenge to campaign finance restrictions being heard by the Supreme Court on Tuesday has the potential to fizzle because of Vice President JD Vance’s reluctance to reveal whether he will run for office in 2028.
That, at least, is what one of the lawyers will tell the justices during the oral argument, which concerns limits on how much party committees can spend in coordination with candidates.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has long been skeptical of campaign finance restrictions on free speech grounds, and Republicans have often brought challenges against them.
Vance, who was among those challenging the spending limits in the case before the court this week, has been equivocal about his plans in various public remarks, most recently in an interview with NBC News last week.
Roman Martinez, whom the court appointed to defend the restrictions when the Trump administration announced it would not do so, says the case is moot, meaning it should be dismissed and the current restrictions should remain in place.
One of Martinez’s key arguments, outlined in court papers, is that Vance, who originally challenged the regulations when he was a Senate candidate, no longer has a stake in the case because he is not currently a candidate, nor has he announced any intention to be one in the future.
“Vice President’s Vance’s claim is now moot because he has repeatedly stated that he has no concrete plan in place to run for any particular office in 2028,” Martinez said in an email.
Because the government switched sides and is now supporting the challengers, “no one had any incentive” to point out the problems he has raised, Martinez added.
Martinez also argues that the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and former Rep. Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, all involved in the legal challenge, have no grounds to maintain the lawsuit, either.
Vance is walking a delicate line as a presumptive heir to President Donald Trump, who faces a constitutional bar to seeking a third term, while also serving as his vice president.
Asked in the recent NBC News interview under what scenario he would not run for president in 2028, Vance refused to take a firm position.
Vance has said before that “the politics will sort themselves out” about a future run if the Trump administration does a good job.
But he indicated it is too soon to make that call, saying “I don’t really think so” when he was asked whether the politics have, indeed, sorted themselves out.
“I try to not wake up and ever think, ‘What does this mean for my future?’ I always try to think, ‘How can I do a good job right now,’ right?” he added. “And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve tried to steer away from the 2028 conversation, because, yeah, like, it’s out there, obviously. It’s something that could happen. It’s something that might not happen. But I never want the focus on the future to come at the expense of this job.”
Noel Francisco, the lawyer arguing for the Republican challengers, who did not respond to a request for comment, addressed Martinez’s arguments in a brief filed last week.
Francisco rejected the contention that Vance’s recent remarks mean the case is moot, saying Martinez would need to “prove Vance does not plan to campaign for federal office again.”
Martinez “has come nowhere close to doing so,” he added.
“To the contrary, all available evidence … indicates that Vance will again run for federal office,” Francisco wrote.
A Vance spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on the case.
The restrictions at issue in the case were first enacted in 1971, but similar limits on rampant spending in elections have been undermined by subsequent court rulings, including the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC decision, which paved the way for unlimited independent expenditures by outside groups. Such spending by outside groups is not at issue in Tuesday’s case, which is focused on party committees.
Under the current law, a party can make unlimited independent expenditures in support of a candidate, but there are limits on how much it can spend in coordination with a candidate.
That can include hiring a venue or fundraising consultants or paying for a candidate’s travel.
The current limit varies based on the voting-age population in specific House or Senate elections; it can be as much as almost $4 million for Senate races and $127,000 for at-large House seats.
The parties in the case, including Vance and the GOP’s campaign committees supporting candidates for Congress, seek to eliminate those caps altogether.
A ruling in favor of Republicans would be likely to benefit their candidates more because Democrats have typically fared better in fundraising than the average Republican, meaning GOP candidates rely more on coordinated party expenditures.
As a result of the Trump administration’s change of position, the Federal Election Commission has sided with the challengers, saying it now agrees the restrictions violate the Constitution’s First Amendment.
In addition to appointing Martinez, the court also allowed the Democratic National Committee to intervene in the case in defense of the restrictions.