On October 14, the Supreme Court stayed an order from the Fourth Circuit that had directed the FCC to rule on a challenge to guidance issued earlier this year by the agency’s Media Bureau. The guidance memorialized the Media Bureau’s position that Section 315(b) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, requires broadcasters to extend lowest-unit-charge (“LUC”) rates—favorable advertising purchase rates for political candidates—not only to the candidates themselves, but also to certain political party committees. While the Supreme Court’s decision is framed in procedural terms, its practical effect is to leave in place the FCC’s guidance for this election cycle and to defer resolution of the scope (and constitutionality) of Section 315(b).

• What The Case Is About: Four political candidates (the “Candidates”) challenged the Media Bureau’s guidance, arguing that requiring broadcasters to make LUC rates available to certain non-candidate purchasers violates the plain text of Section 315(b) and unlawfully dilutes the candidates’ exclusive statutory right to buy advertising time at the lowest unit charge.
• What The Decision Means: In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, it is very unlikely that the Media Bureau’s guidance will be addressed by a federal court in the near future. In practice, that means that for the rest of this election cycle, broadcasters must extend LUC rates to joint fundraising committees and coordinated candidate-party expenditures or risk FCC scrutiny and potentially substantial penalties.
• What’s Next: Since neither the Supreme Court nor the FCC has reached the merits of the Candidates’ challenge to the Media Bureau guidance, the question of whether these committees will be entitled to LUC rates under Section 315(b) in subsequent election cycles—and, if not, whether Section 315(b) would violate the First Amendment—remains unresolved.

The FCC’s Media Bureau Issues Guidance Requiring Broadcasters to Extend LUC Rates to Candidates and Certain Non-Candidate Purchasers Alike.

Under 47 U.S.C. § 315(b), political candidates are entitled to purchase advertising time at broadcasting stations’ LUC rates—that is, the lowest rates that the stations charge for the same “class and amount” of time. For political candidates, LUC rates are favorable, since they permit the candidates to get the most advertising time out of every campaign dollar spent. They also give candidates an advantage over other purchasers of political advertising time who have no statutory entitlement to equally low rates—and thus may end up paying substantially more for comparable advertising time. With billions of dollars spent in broadcast advertising every election cycle, even small differences in advertising rate prices can make a big difference for candidates and broadcasters alike.

The FCC has long construed Section 315(b) to apply not just to candidates, but also to their authorized campaign committees—defined by federal election law as a candidate’s principal campaign committee or any other committee authorized “to receive contributions or make expenditures on behalf of [the] candidate.” 52 U.S.C. § 30101(6). On March 30, 2026, however, the FCC’s Media Bureau issued a public notice to “remind” broadcasters that any authorized committee was entitled to lowest-unit-charge rates. That included joint fundraising committees that supported multiple candidates, as well as political parties engaged in coordinated expenditures with their candidates.

On April 29, 2026, the Candidates and their principal campaign committees applied to the FCC to set aside the Media Bureau’s public notice. The Candidates argued that instead of providing a reminder of existing law, the Media Bureau’s notice had sharply departed from the FCC’s longstanding position that party and joint-fundraising committees were not entitled to LUC rates. By requiring LUC rates to be made available to those committees, the Candidates complained, the guidance effectively diluted the Candidates’ exclusive statutory right to purchase LUC-rate advertising.

In light of the impending midterm elections, the Candidates urged the FCC to take expedited action on their application. The FCC did not do so, leading to the present dispute.

Four Candidates Challenge the Guidance, and the Fourth Circuit Directs the FCC to Resolve Their Application.

In late June 2026, without a decision from the FCC, the Candidates petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to set aside the Media Bureau’s public notice. The Candidates argued that party-coordinated advertisements did not qualify for LUC rates because those advertisements involved “use” of a broadcasting station by a party committee, not by a “legally qualified candidate.” See 47 U.S.C. § 315(b). Opposing the petition, the FCC—with the support of two intervening party committees—argued that the Fourth Circuit lacked jurisdiction and that the public notice was consistent with Section 315(b) in any event.

A procedural morass ensued, with the parties, the Fourth Circuit, and the Supreme Court (on a prior emergency application) split on whether and how the Media Bureau’s guidance could be reviewed in federal court. Ultimately, a divided Fourth Circuit panel twice agreed with the Candidates. In August 2026, Judge King and Judge Wynn concluded that Section 315(b)’s “unambiguous” statutory text “provide[d] no support for the Media Bureau’s significant and unilateral expansion” of the LUC requirement to party and joint-fundraising committees. Then, on October 7, Judge King and Judge Wynn ordered the FCC to rule on the Candidates’ challenge to the Media Bureau guidance within 48 hours based on largely the same reasoning.

Judge Wilkinson twice dissented. On the merits, he thought that interpreting Section 315(b) to exclude advertisements purchased by party committees could not be squared with the First Amendment even if the Media Bureau’s guidance were judicially reviewable. As Judge Wilkinson explained, Section 315(b)’s LUC-rate provisions had been “passed as part of the Federal Election Campaign Act,” which had “placed broader, direct limits on party-coordinated speech.” But the Supreme Court had recently struck down those direct limits in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, 609 U.S. __ (2026), leaving the Fourth Circuit with “a kind of mop-up duty” to “decide whether Congress can do indirectly, via the LUC rules, what it cannot do directly.” In Judge Wilkinson’s view, Congress could not use the LUC rules to “penaliz[e] candidates for favoring collaborative speech over solo self-promotion.” Because construing Section 315(b) to do just that would pose a serious constitutional problem, Judge Wilkinson would have resolved the ambiguity in the statute’s LUC rules in favor of the FCC’s interpretation.

The Supreme Court Stays the Fourth Circuit’s Order, Effectively Leaving in Place the Media Bureau Guidance Through This Election Cycle.

On October 8—one day before the Fourth Circuit’s deadline for the FCC to rule on the Candidates’ application—the FCC sought an emergency stay at the U.S. Supreme Court. After a brief administrative stay, the Supreme Court issued a per curiam decision on October 14 granting the FCC a stay pending the filing and disposition of its petition for certiorari. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson noted that they would deny the stay, but did not file a separate opinion.

The Supreme Court did not address the merits of the dispute—that is, it did not determine whether Section 315(b) entitles party and joint-fundraising committees to LUC rates. But by staying the Fourth Circuit’s attempt to force the FCC to immediately address the question, the Supreme Court’s decision means that the Media Bureau’s LUC guidance will very likely remain in place through the midterm elections. (Indeed, the FCC’s petition for certiorari is not even due until well after election day.) And the constitutional question raised by Judge Wilkinson—specifically, whether interpreting Section 315(b) to favor candidates over party committees runs afoul of the First Amendment—remains open. As a result, broadcasters should take care to ensure that LUC rates are extended to all eligible parties. Failure to do so could invite scrutiny and potential penalties from the FCC.

We will continue to monitor these developments and are available to address any questions that affected parties may have.