The Republican National Committee on Friday sued the Federal Election Commission in an effort to raise unlimited cash like super PACs do. The central committee, chairman Reince Priebus and Louisiana Republicans filed a joint lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking for permission to set up an independent account that could raise and spend potentially enormous sums of money to help federal candidates. Under the current rules, the RNC may only accept $32,400 each year from donors, and local-level parties are capped at $10,000.
First thoughts: If the challenge is successful, much of the money that’s going into super-PACS might go into parties, resulting in more party control and party discipline. Or not. The rich who give to super-PACS might have already gotten a taste of what it feels like to circumvent party hierarchy and bureaucracy and opt for direct message control. So, it might just mean that even more money will go into politics.
