Wisconsin elections, already flooded with cash, could get even more expensive

Elections in Wisconsin are setting new spending records every year, but the U.S. Supreme Court appears set to allow even more money into political races across the country if it rules the way experts expect it to in a pending case.

A case brought to the court by Republican plaintiffs in December seeks to abolish limits on coordinated campaign expenditures, which is money political parties spend in collaboration with candidates. The court’s June decision to hear a challenge to its decades-old precedent speaks to the conservative majority’s distaste for regulating campaign finance, experts say. 

“We know where this thing is going because of how the (Chief Justice John) Roberts’ Court has dealt with campaign finance restrictions,” said Anthony Chergosky, a political science professor at UW-La Crosse.  

The Supreme Court will reconsider its 2001 decision, which ruled that limits on coordinated campaign expenditures are constitutional. The limits apply to shared expenses between party and candidate, such as advertising costs. 

Undoing these limits “would open a new, significant way for political parties to spend in direct support of their candidates’ campaigns,” Chergosky said.

In Wisconsin, parties coordinating with U.S. Senate candidates can spend up to about $600,000 in a general election campaign before the limits kick in, according to the Federal Elections Commission. Nationwide, limits vary from $127,200 to $3,946,100 based on the state’s voting age population. For U.S. House nominees in states with more than one representative, which includes Wisconsin, the spending cap is about $63,000.

The Republican plaintiffs – which include the National Republican Congressional Committee, Vice President J.D. Vance, and former Rep. Steve Chabot – filed their case in 2022 and went to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court upheld the spending limits. 

The court will likely hear the case in the fall and release a decision in 2026 just as U.S. midterm elections kick into gear, according to a SCOTUSblog analysis. All eight of Wisconsin’s U.S. House members will face reelection, though neither senator will.

The limits the court will review only apply to federal elections for president or Congress, said Brendan Glavin, the research director for OpenSecrets, a Washington-based watchdog that tracks lobbying and campaign finance data. The limits do not apply to state-level candidates.

But “even with the limit, people can still give quite a lot of money to the party, and the party is still allowed to make independent expenditures,” Glavin said. “It’s not like anybody’s being shut down.”

Even if the Supreme Court struck down these limits, federal contribution caps would still apply. This year and next, the federal limits on how much an individual can give to a candidate committee is $3,500 per election. Individuals are also limited to a yearly donation of about $44,000 to a national party committee, according to the FEC.

But the coordinated campaign expenditure limits seal a loophole, Glavin said. The limits prevent donors from circumventing individual contribution caps by donating to a party that can essentially earmark the money for a specific candidate.  

“When you take these coordinated limits away, then you’re essentially providing a bit of an end run around the contribution limits for an individual,” said Glavin. However, the Republican challenge “does fit into a broader trend of what we’ve seen over time.”

Campaign finance reform, including limits on coordinated campaign expenditures, were taken up in the 1970s and expanded in 2002, Glavin said. Since then, the reforms have been incrementally rolled back through court decisions like Citizens United v. F.E.C., the 2010 Supreme Court case that paved the way for unlimited political spending organizations called Super PACs.

Reversing the law isn’t likely to affect dark money or Super PAC spending, Glavin said. But you’d likely see more candidates and parties approaching a donor together.

“One ask, one check, that’s an easier way to get the donor,” Glavin said. 

Thus, overruling precedent in this case would “tilt the balance of power back in favor of party committees,” Chergosky said. Though partisan loyalty is strong, Chergosky explained, party organizations have seen their influence weaken in light of outside groups like Super PACs.

Though none of Wisconsin’s U.S. Senate seats will be in play next year, Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District is set to be one of the most expensive House races in the 2026 cycle, Chergosky said.

The race will likely be a rematch between Republican incumbent Rep. Derrick Van Orden of  Prairie du Chien and Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke of Eau Claire, both of whom are “exceptional fundraisers,” Chergosky said.

As the number of competitive seats continues to decline, an “enormous amount of money gets funneled into fewer and fewer districts,” Chergosky said. But regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, there won’t be a shortage of money spent in the 3rd District, he said. 

Wisconsin law provides an interesting contrast, Chergosky said. Here, state law limits how much individuals can give directly to candidates, but it does not limit the amount individuals can give to parties, nor does it limit how much party committees can give to state-level candidates. 

“The comparison to the Wisconsin law is interesting because that has really motivated donors to give to state parties in a way that we just haven’t seen at the national level,” Chergosky said.

The piles of cash that fuel state and national politics has encouraged some Wisconsin legislators to propose resolutions amending the U.S. Constitution.

A Republican-backed proposal calls for an amendment that would also allow states to regulate spending in elections. A Democratic proposal calls for an advisory referendum to appear on Wisconsin ballots; it would ask voters whether they approve of amending the Constitution in order to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United.

If two-thirds of the state legislatures in the country request it, Congress can convene to consider amending the Constitution. The joint resolutions, if successful, are necessary if Wisconsin wants Congress to convene a constitutional convention. A joint resolution must pass both chambers of the state Legislature; the governor’s signature is not required.

Lawmakers last acted on the Democrats’ proposal in May, and the most recent action on the Republican proposal was in June.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

This article first appeared on The Badger Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.