Supreme Court Again Sides With Trump in Campaign Ad Dispute

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Oct. 14 again sided with the Trump administration in a dispute over broadcast advertising rates, blocking a lower court from ordering the Federal Communications Commission to respond to Democratic objections before the November elections that will determine control of Congress.

The unsigned decision extends a previous pause and leaves in place the FCC’s March interpretation allowing political parties to receive the same low ad rates that stations must offer to legally qualified candidates. That interpretation is at the center of a campaign finance fight with immediate consequences for Republican and Democratic committees.

Under federal law, stations in the run-up to an election must give their lowest rates to “any person who is a legally qualified candidate for any public office in connection with his campaign.” In March, the FCC said that applies to ads run by political parties in coordination with candidates—not only to ads paid for by the candidates themselves.

Four Democrats running for the House or Senate in battleground races, including Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, challenged that interpretation. They argue the FCC expanded the law beyond its text and did so through a process designed to avoid timely court review.

The Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, divided 2-1 on Oct. 7, said the FCC was trying to “create from whole cloth a new rule entirely outside the purview of judicial review.” The court added that it had granted the FCC “a substantial amount of grace, but its gamesmanship must end.”

In an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, the Justice Department said the FCC is still collecting public comments about the policy and that it is “entirely reasonable to refrain from issuing a decision on campaign-finance rules in the middle of the election season.”

Democrats responded that the FCC was conducting “blatant procedural trench warfare” to delay judicial review until it is too late to matter.

The Supreme Court majority said the law does not require the FCC to act within a particular timeframe and that it would violate separation of powers for judges to get involved. “The Commission may exercise its discretion to set its own procedures and schedule for resolving such applications,” the majority wrote.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, two of the court’s three liberal justices, dissented. In September, the justices had also ruled for Republicans, holding that the appeals court could not block the policy before the FCC completed its internal review.

The stakes are not abstract. Republicans are trying to fend off a blue wave to protect their majorities in the House and Senate. Party committees have raised considerably more than Democratic party committees, and the policy could help the GOP close resource gaps in key races where Democratic candidates have outraised Republicans.

The FCC has not set a public timetable for resolving the Democrats’ complaint, leaving the rate policy in place as the election season enters its final weeks.

Reporting by USA Today. Read the original report: Supreme Court again sides with Trump in campaign ad dispute.