The U.S. Supreme Court case Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee in 2000 revolved around the issue of whether limits on political party expenditures related to specific candidates violated the First Amendment's freedom of speech clause. The court ruled in a 5-4 decision that such restrictions were constitutional, as they served to prevent corruption or its appearance within political campaigns and parties. This ruling upheld provisions from the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) which imposed limitations on coordinated expenditure by political parties for their respective candidates during federal elections, rejecting arguments that these limits infringed upon free speech rights under the First Amendment.

In the dissenting opinion for the Federal Election Commission v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee case, Justice Thomas, joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Kennedy, argued that political parties should have an unrestricted right to spend money in support of their candidates. They disagreed with the majority's view that such spending could potentially corrupt or appear to corrupt candidates. The dissenters contended that this reasoning was speculative at best and not supported by sufficient evidence. Furthermore, they believed it violated First Amendment rights of free speech as political contributions are a form of expression. They also pointed out inconsistencies in how different types of donations were treated under law; while individual donors had limits on their contributions directly to campaigns but not on independent expenditures supporting those campaigns, political parties had restrictions on both direct donations and independent expenditures.