The Supreme Court on Wednesday suspended a lower court’s deadline requiring the Federal Communications Commission to decide a challenge to discounted campaign advertising rates within 48 hours.
The justices said the deadline improperly interfered with the FCC’s ongoing review. The decision leaves unresolved whether the agency can extend favorable broadcast advertising rates beyond political candidates to certain fundraising committees and political parties.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson would have denied the requests for a stay.
The dispute began with a March 30 notice from the FCC’s Media Bureau. It said candidates, joint fundraising committees with noncandidate members, and parties conducting coordinated political activity qualified for the agency’s lowest unit charge.
Those requirements govern favorable rates broadcasters must offer for campaign advertisements in the weeks before elections.
Four congressional candidates challenged the notice before the full commission, arguing that the discounted rates were available only to candidates. Two months later, with their request still pending, they took the same challenge to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
A divided appeals court panel set aside the notice. The panel concluded that the law’s text and legislative history limited eligibility to political candidates.
The Supreme Court paused that decision Sept. 4. It said the appeals court likely lacked authority to consider the challenge before the FCC had ruled on the candidates’ request.
On Oct. 7, the same appeals court panel ordered the commission to issue a decision by Oct. 9. The Supreme Court temporarily suspended that deadline Oct. 8 while considering the FCC’s request for a longer stay.
In Wednesday’s unsigned opinion, the justices said the law requires the FCC to decide applications for review but does not set a deadline for doing so.
The appeals court imposed its two-day deadline while the commission was still deliberating. One comment period had ended a week earlier, and another remained open for a related application the FCC was reviewing alongside the candidates’ challenge.
The court said forcing the agency to abandon that process and prepare a final decision within 48 hours would cause harm that could not later be repaired.
The stay will remain in place while a timely request for Supreme Court review is filed and considered. If the justices decline review, it will end automatically. If they accept the case, it will continue until the court sends down its judgment.
The court dismissed a related stay request from the National Republican Congressional Committee and other applicants as moot.
