If the Court can see its way to ruling for the NRSC, it might help America’s two major parties reclaim control of their respective destinies.

I’ll leave it to my colleagues to assess the merits of arguments that will soon be before the Supreme Court when it takes up National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election Commission (NRSC v. FEC). The Court is being asked to determine whether coordinated campaign-related expenditure limits in the Federal Election Campaign Act violate the First Amendment. In plainer terms, is it constitutional to place limits on the funds that political parties can spend in “coordination” with candidates?

Sidestepping the complicated questions about the statutory language, judicial precedent, and the shifting definition of what constitutes “corruption,” which this law was intended to root out (operating on the assumption that federal contribution limits and reporting requirements do “not corrupt candidates in the same way a large contribution might”), a finding for the NRSC would have a salutary effect on American politics.

Critics of America’s campaign finance regime often note that the regulations designed to get big money out of politics managed only to get the parties out of politics. As Punchbowl’s Ally Mutnick observed, a decision that allows the party’s committees to work with select candidates and “buy TV ads at the much lower rate given to candidates” could be “seismic.”

Indeed, ending limits on coordinated party spending would help reduce the influence small-dollar contributors have over the political process, particularly in primary races, which are every bit as corrupting as big money is presumed to be. If you’ve wondered why so many politicians seem to lock themselves into positions that appeal only to the radical fringes of their respective coalitions to the detriment of their broader appeal, there’s your answer.

A finding in favor of the NRSC might also provide party committees with more influence over the candidate selection process. If a nominee believes he or she cannot win without the support of the party’s committee, it creates more incentives to serve those institutions. That would be preferable to the status quo, in which candidates capture these electoral vehicles and use them as platforms to burnish their political brands — all and only for personal benefit at the expense of institutional health and cohesion.

In general, Americans may look askance at the legal effort to roll back the country’s campaign finance regime. They’ll survey the landscape, see it glutted with lavishly funded political action committees and independent expenditures, and wonder why the parties want even more control over even more money. Those who are invested in preserving voters’ confusion are sure to demagogue the issue. But if the Court can see its way to ruling for the NRSC, it might help America’s two major parties reclaim control of their respective destinies. That would be a very good thing.