Supreme Court Shields FCC Rule Favoring Party Advertising Rates
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The Supreme Court blocked a lower court order and let the FCC keep in place a policy extending low advertising rates to political parties before the November elections, even as Democrats warned it was a procedural stunt that delays review.
The Supreme Court on Oct. 14 rejected a lower-court attempt to force the Federal Communications Commission to respond promptly to Democratic objections to a rule that lets political parties receive the same low broadcast advertising rates that must be offered to individual candidates. The Court said the FCC is under no legal duty to act within a fixed deadline and that judicial intervention would upset the separation of powers.
In an unsigned opinion, the majority said the Commission may write its own procedures and timetable for handling such applications. The ruling follows a September decision that stopped the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals from blocking the policy before the FCC finished its internal review.
The FCC’s policy, announced in March, reads a federal requirement that stations offer their lowest rates to any legally qualified candidate to also include ads run by political parties in coordination with candidates. Four Democratic candidates, including Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, challenged that interpretation in court.
Two liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the majority. The Justice Department, in an emergency appeal, said the FCC was still collecting public comments and argued it was reasonable to delay a decision on campaign-finance rules during the election season. Democrats blasted the FCC's approach as a transparent procedural maneuver designed to stall judicial review.