A Win for American Democracy

David Frum: “This is not a sentence written often lately, but the U.S. Supreme Court has just done a great service to American democracy.”

“On June 30, the Court struck down federal limits on the amount of money that political parties can spend in coordination with individual federal candidates. Some early reports on National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission represented the 6–3 decision as a victory for big money. To some extent, it is—but for once, in a good way.”

“Years of campaign-finance reforms have curbed the power and leverage that the Republican and Democratic Parties have had in elections, which has handily undermined the quality of candidates on the ballot (see: Graham Platner). Letting the parties spend more should helpfully restore some of their leverage. When the parties were stronger, they somehow managed to assemble hundreds of contending interest groups into just two broad coalitions. They negotiated compromises and reconciled differences. Who has that job now?”