Dccc v. Federal Election Commission

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

DCCC,

Plaintiff,

v.

FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION, Civil Action No. 24-cv-2935 (RDM)

Defendant,

NRSC,

Intervenor-Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

Plaintiff Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (“DCCC”) is a national

campaign committee with the mission of electing Democratic Party candidates to the U.S. House

of Representatives. Dkt. 28 at 6 (Am. Compl. ¶ 15). To further its mission, the DCCC makes

contributions and expenditures in support of Democratic congressional candidates. Id. The

Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (“FECA” or “the Act”), 52 U.S.C. § 3010 et seq.,

imposes disclosure obligations and limits on both contributions to political candidates and

political parties’ expenditures for campaign activities that are made in coordination with

candidates. When a political party’s committee makes expenditures for campaign activities in

coordination with a candidate, those expenditures are referred to as coordinated party

expenditures, and, until recently, they were subject to contribution limits.

The DCCC’s Amended Complaint alleges that, in the lead-up to the 2024 election, “the

National Republican Senatorial Committee (‘NRSC’) began relying on an implausible reading of

an agency regulation in order to circumvent statutory limits that Congress has placed on

coordinated spending between political parties and their candidates,” and the DCCC’s

competitor, “[t]he National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee (‘NRCC’) soon

followed suit.” Dkt. 28 at 1 (Am. Compl. ¶ 1). In short, the NRSC and NRCC ran a coordinated

campaign, the primary focus of which was expressly advocating for the election of the

candidates they supported. But, because the ads included brief taglines asking supporters to

“Give Today,” the NRSC and NRCC maintained that the ads were simply joint-fundraising

efforts, which fall outside the then-existing coordinated-expenditure limits. Id. at 18 (Am.

Compl. ¶ 55); see also id. at 2 (Am. Compl. ¶ 1). The NRSC and NRCC spent “tens of millions

of dollars on” these ads “in full coordination with those candidates” and “far exceed[ed] the

limits [on coordinated party expenditures] set forth in federal law.” Id. at 1–2 (Am. Compl. ¶ 1)

(emphasis omitted).

In September 2024, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (“DSCC”), which

supports Democratic candidates for the U.S. Senate, sought an advisory opinion from the Federal

Election Commission (“FEC”) on the question whether amounts spent on joint-fundraising

advertisements like the ones funded by the NRSC and NRCC were subject to FECA’s

coordinated expenditure limits. Pursuant to FECA, those subject to the Act may request advisory

opinions from the FEC before taking action to confirm whether a “specific [proposed]

transaction or activity by the person” is legally permissible. Ready for Ron v. FEC, No. 22-cv-

3282, 2023 WL 3539633, at *3 (D.D.C. May 17, 2023) (quoting 52 U.S.C. § 30108(a)(1)).

Notably, a “favorable advisory opinion” approving the proposed action provides a “safe harbor”

against any enforcement action under FECA. Id.

Issuance of an advisory opinion requires “the affirmative vote of 4 members of the

Commission.” 52 U.S.C. § 30106(c). If four of the commissioners cannot agree on the

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substance of an advisory opinion, the FEC will issue a letter “stating that the Commission was

unable to approve an advisory opinion by the required affirmative vote of 4 members.” 11

C.F.R. § 112.4(a). With respect to the DSCC’s request for an advisory opinion addressing

whether ads like those paid for by the NRSC were subject to FECA’s limits on contributions and

coordinated party expenditures, the FEC deadlocked, with three members voting in favor of one

result and three in favor of the other. The FEC accordingly issued a Closeout Letter on October

10, 2024, informing the requesters that it had “concluded its consideration” of the request

“without issuing an advisory opinion” because no opinion received the affirmative vote of four

members. Dkt. 46 at 152–53 (AR 148–49).

The DSCC did not seek judicial review of the FEC’s closeout of its advisory-opinion

request. But its sister committee, the DCCC, filed this suit challenging the FEC’s decision not to

render an advisory opinion as arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law under the

Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq. (“APA”). Dkt. 1 at 27 (Compl. ¶ 93). The

DCCC alleged that the agency “failed to administer and uphold FECA’s contribution and party

expenditure limits . . . by failing to issue an [advisory opinion] making clear that expenditures to

pay for a candidate’s television advertisements are ‘contributions’ under FECA that are subject

to the statute’s limits,” and further alleged that the agency deprived the DCCC “of safe harbor

protection for such excess expenditures to support” similar “advertising.” Id. Among other

things, the DCCC sought a preliminary injunction and a declaration that expenditures made on

the ads at issue qualify as “contributions” under the Act and are “thus subject to FECA’s limits.”

Id. (Prayer for Relief). The same day that the DCCC filed suit, it moved for a preliminary

injunction, Dkt. 6, and less than a week later, the NRSC intervened as a defendant, Dkt. 14

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(motion for leave to intervene); Min. Order (Oct. 23, 2024) (granting intervention). On

November 1, 2024, the Court denied the DCCC’s motion for a preliminary injunction. Dkt. 21.

On December 20, 2024, the DCCC filed the currently operative, amended complaint.

Dkt. 28. The FEC and the NRSC each moved to dismiss that complaint on various grounds,

including that the DCCC lacked standing to challenge the FEC’s decision not to issue an

advisory opinion in response to DSCC’s request and that the FEC’s October 10, 2024, Closeout

Letter resulting from the deadlocked three-three vote was not a “final agency action” reviewable

under the APA, 5 U.S.C. § 704. Dkt. 32 (NRSC); Dkt. 34 (FEC). The DCCC opposed both

motions and cross-moved for summary judgment. Dkt. 36; Dkt. 37.

Shortly after those motions were fully briefed, the Supreme Court granted the NRSC’s

petition for a writ of certiorari in National Republican Senatorial Committee v. Federal Election

Commission, No. 24-621 (June 30, 2025), which raised a First Amendment challenge to FECA’s

political-party coordinated-expenditure limits. The NRSC argued that this Court “should not

proceed to the merits” of the instant dispute “without first receiving the Supreme Court’s

direction on the First Amendment issues.” Dkt. 49 at 2. The Court agreed and stayed the case

pending the Supreme Court’s decision. Min. Order (July 31, 2025).

On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court issued its decision in National Republican

Senatorial Committee v. FEC, 146 S. Ct. 2404, 2413 (2026) (hereinafter “NRSC”), striking down

“FECA’s limits on political parties’ coordinated expenditures.” In light of this development, the

Court requested supplemental briefing addressing whether the Supreme Court’s intervening

decision rendered the DCCC’s claim moot and whether the DCCC has an ongoing live interest in

vacatur of the FEC’s October 10, 2024, Closeout Letter or a declaration that joint-fundraising

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advertisements like the NRSC’s qualify as “contributions” for purposes of FECA’s disclosure

requirements. Dkt. 57 at 62 (Tr. 62:1–6).

In its supplemental briefing, the DCCC does not dispute that the reason for the DSCC’s

advisory-opinion request—whether joint-fundraising advertisements like those run by NRSC are

subject to FECA’s limits on coordinated party expenditures—no longer presents a live

controversy for judicial review, after the Supreme Court’s decision in NRSC rendered those

limits unenforceable. Instead, the DCCC has shifted course to focus on the NRSC’s failure to

file contribution reports disclosing its spending on these ads as coordinated party expenditures.

The DCCC argues that, had the FEC answered the DSCC’s advisory-opinion request in the

manner that the DCCC contends FECA requires, that opinion would have established that the ads

at issue qualify as coordinated expenditures and that, even if the contribution limits no longer

apply, the coordinated-expenditure disclosure rules do. That matters, according to the DCCC,

because the failure to report these coordinated expenditures under FECA has caused, and

continues to cause, the DCCC a cognizable injury by depriving it of valuable information to

which it has a statutory right. The DCCC now asks the Court to vacate the October 10, 2024,

Closeout Letter and to issue a declaratory judgment answering a question that the DSCC never

asked the FEC to decide in the first instance: whether advertisements like the ones at issue are

subject to FECA’s reporting requirements for coordinated party expenditures, rather than its

provisions governing the reporting of joint-fundraising communications.

But even if there are some circumstances in which the FEC’s non-issuance of an advisory

opinion presents a justiciable controversy upon which the Court may grant declaratory relief, see

Ready for Ron, 2023 WL 3539633, at *3 n.3, those circumstances are not present in this case.

For present purposes, the Court need not decide whether the DCCC has established a cognizable

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informational injury resulting from the NRSC’s (and the NCCC’s) reporting of these ads as joint-

fundraising communications rather as coordinated party expenditures, because the DCCC cannot

clear other jurisdictional hurdles. Most notably, the DCCC has not established that its injury, if

any, is traceable to the FEC’s non-issuance of a decision on a question that is now moot. Nor

has the DCCC demonstrated that setting aside the FEC’s Closeout Letter would redress DCCC’s

asserted injury, as vacatur of the letter would not require the FEC to issue any advisory opinion

at all, let alone the advisory opinion that DCCC seeks. The DCCC’s claim, reframed as it has

been in light of the Supreme Court’s intervening decision, presents a question that is unmoored

from the request presented to the FEC and from the action—or nonaction—the agency actually

took. In these circumstances, the claim does not present a judiciable controversy within the

Court’s power to adjudicate.

The Court will, accordingly, GRANT Defendant’s and Intervenor-Defendant’s motions

to dismiss and DENY Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Statutory and Regulatory Background

Congress enacted FECA “to remedy any actual or perceived corruption of the political

process” by regulating financing of political campaigns. FEC v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11, 14 (1998).

Among other things, FECA imposes disclosure and reporting requirements on candidates for

public office and their campaign committees, 52 U.S.C. § 30104(b)(3), as well as limits on

contributions to political candidates, including political committees’ expenditures in coordination

with those candidates, id. § 30116(a)(1)(A), (a)(2)(A), (d)(3).

For purposes of these limits, “contributions” are defined to include “any gift,

subscription, loan, advance, or deposit of money or anything of value made by any person for the

purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.” Id. § 30101(8)(A)(i). Contributions to a

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candidate also include “expenditures made by any person in cooperation, consultation, or

concert, with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate, his authorized political committees,

or their agents.” Id. § 30116(a)(7)(B)(i). Expenditures include “any purchase, payment,

distribution, loan, advance, deposit, or gift of money or anything of value, made by any person

for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.” Id. § 30101(9)(A)(i).

To avoid circumvention of these limits, candidates may not designate a “political

committee” that “supports . . . more than one candidate,” id. § 30102(e)(3)(A), as an authorized

committee “to receive contributions or make expenditures on behalf of [the] candidate,” id.

§ 30101(6). But notwithstanding this rule, candidates may “designate a political committee

established solely for the purpose of joint fundraising by such candidates.” Id.

§ 30102(e)(3)(A)(ii). When candidates designate political committees for joint-fundraising

efforts, FEC regulations require that the candidate and the committee “state a formula for the

allocation of fundraising proceeds” in a written agreement and that each participant pay a

percentage of the fundraising expenses equal to the percentage of the proceeds allocated to them

by this formula. 11 C.F.R. § 102.17(c)(1)–(2), (7)(i)(A). When one participant in a joint-

fundraising effort pays another participant’s expenses, that payment is treated as a contribution.

Id. § 102.17(c)(7)(i)(B).

The FEC has also promulgated regulations governing communications paid for by

national political party committees in coordination with candidates. See 11 C.F.R. § 109.37. A

communication paid for by a political party committee or its agent in coordination with a

candidate falls within these rules if, as relevant here, the communication is a “public

communication” that “expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified

candidate” or “refers to a clearly identified House or Senate candidate and is publicly distributed

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or otherwise publicly disseminated in the clearly identified candidate’s jurisdiction 90 days or

fewer before the clearly identified candidate’s general . . . election.” Id. § 109.37(a)(2)(ii),

(iii)(A). Party coordinated communications are subject to FECA’s limits on contributions and

coordinated party expenditures. Id. § 109.37(b).

To reduce uncertainty among those seeking to navigate its shoals, FECA authorizes those

who want to take a proposed action but worry they may inadvertently contravene one of its

substantive provisions to request an advisory opinion from the six-member FEC on whether a

“specific [proposed] transaction or activity” is legally permissible. DCCC v. FEC, No. 24-cv-

2935, 2024 WL 4650907, at *3 (D.D.C. Nov. 1, 2024) (hereinafter “DCCC I”) (quoting 52

U.S.C. § 30108(a)(1)). The FEC must accept comments on the request and issue a response

within a designated timeframe—60 days in the ordinary course, or 20 days if the request is made

within 60 days of an election in which the requester is a participant. 52 U.S.C. § 30108(a)(2),

(d). Issuing an advisory opinion requires “the affirmative vote of 4 members of the

Commission.” Id. § 30106(c). The FEC may not issue an advisory opinion absent four votes;

rather, if four commissioners cannot agree on the answer to the question posed, the FEC must

“issue a written response stating that the Commission was unable to approve an advisory opinion

by the required affirmative vote of 4 members.” 11 C.F.R. § 112.4(a).

For regulated parties, advisory opinions carry significant legal importance: If the FEC,

with the affirmative vote of four members, issues an advisory opinion approving of the proposed

course of action, the requester “and any person involved in an identical transaction or activity to

that described in the request, may rely in good faith on the opinion and will be protected from

any sanction under FECA that might otherwise attach to the transaction or activity.” DCCC I,

2024 WL 4650907, at *3 (quoting McCutcheon v. FEC, 496 F. Supp. 3d 318, 324–25 (D.D.C.

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2020)). This “safe harbor” exists only when the FEC issues a “favorable” advisory opinion. Id.

Regulated parties have no such safe harbor when the FEC issues an advisory opinion

disapproving of the proposed action or when the FEC is unable to reach a majority decision. Id.

The advisory opinion process is distinct from the administrative complaint process, which

permits those who believe that someone has violated FECA to file a complaint with the FEC. 52

U.S.C. § 30109(a)(1). Anyone “aggrieved by an order of the Commission dismissing a

complaint . . . or fail[ing] . . . to act on [a] complaint” may, during a prescribed period, “file a

petition with” this Court seeking review of the FEC’s dismissal or failure to act. Id.

§ 30109(a)(8)(A). To prevail on such a petition, the complainant must, among other things,

establish that the FEC’s “dismissal . . . or failure to act is contrary to law.” Id. § 30109(a)(8); see

also Campaign Legal Ctr. v. Iowa Values, 573 F. Supp. 3d 243, 252 (D.D.C. 2021). If the court

declares that the agency’s dismissal of the complaint or failure to act was contrary to law, and if

the FEC fails “to conform to such declaration within 30 days,” the complainant may then “bring,

in the name of such complainant, a civil action to remedy the violation involved in the original

complaint.” 52 U.S.C. § 30109(a)(8)(C). To date, the DCCC has not sought to invoke this

process to challenge what it views as its competitors’ violation of FECA’s reporting

requirements.

B. Factual and Procedural Background

The Court has previously recounted much of the factual background and procedural

history in this case, see DCCC I, 2024 WL 4650907, and will not repeat those details here. For

present purposes, the Court will focus on the facts and procedural history necessary to resolve

the FEC’s and NRSC’s Motions to Dismiss and the DCCC’s Cross-Motion for Summary

Judgment.

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In the leadup to the 2024 election, the NRSC began running advertisements that, in

significant part, focused on positively portraying specific Republican Senatorial candidates

and/or negatively portraying those candidates’ Democratic opponents. But for a very short

fundraising appeal at the end, the ads were classic campaign ads, which included words of

express advocacy. Some advertisements, for example, would be narrated by Republican

candidates themselves and would highlight features of those candidates’ backgrounds, while

others primarily attacked their Democratic opponents on grounds of purported corruption or

radicalism. See, e.g., More Work to Do, Michigan Victory Fund/Rogers, https://perma.cc/GY65-

XBX6; Two Faced Tester, Ad Impact, https://perma.cc/K3MX-88JS. In the final few seconds,

each ad would end with a brief fundraising request along the lines of “Join my team. Give

today,” accompanied by a QR code linking to the donation page.

According to the NRSC, these final few seconds transform what would otherwise be a

coordinated party expenditure and contribution into a joint-fundraising advertisement not subject

to FECA’s limits. Under this theory, the NRSC and the candidates’ campaign committees could

jointly pay for the advertisements according to an agreed-upon formula without requiring the

NRSC’s share of the expenses to be treated as contributions to the candidate. This arrangement

would be permissible as long as any fundraising proceeds were split between the NRSC and the

candidates’ committees according to the same formula—regardless of how much or how little

those advertisements actually raised.

Based on its concerns that the NRSC’s use of these purported “joint-fundraising ads”

allowed the NRSC to circumvent FECA and to spend millions of dollars supporting Republican

senatorial candidates without regard to the Act’s contribution or coordinated-party-expenditure

limits, the DSCC requested an advisory opinion from the FEC. See Dkt. 46 at 5–11 (AR 1–7).

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In its request, the DSCC stated that it “wishe[d] to establish two separate joint fundraising

committees” for each of two identified Senate candidates. Id. at 6 (AR 2). And the DCCC

proposed to run ads that “would be materially indistinguishable” from those the NRSC was

already running, with a primary focus on advocating for the specific candidate and a brief oral

fundraising solicitation at the end, alongside a QR code. Id. at 9 (AR 5). The DSCC’s request

stated that the cost of these ads “would exceed the DSCC’s contribution limit or coordinated

party spending limit with respect to each candidate.” Id. at 6 (AR 2).

After outlining this proposed course of action, the DSCC requested that the FEC answer

three questions:

1. May each Joint Fundraising Committee finance the entire costs of the

proposed television advertising, allocating the costs according to the

Allocation Formula?

2. In the alternative, may each Joint Fundraising Committee finance the portion

of the television advertising that includes a solicitation for the Joint

Fundraising Committee, calculated on a time/space basis (approximately

four seconds in the example provided), allocating the costs according to the

Allocation Formula?

3. If the answer to question 1 or 2 is yes, does the Act require that the television

advertising contain an on-screen disclaimer that meets the requirements of

11 C.F.R. § 102.17(c)(2)?

Id. at 7 (AR 3) (emphases added). The questions posed made no mention of reporting

requirements and, instead, focused only on how the ads were financed.

The FEC accepted the advisory opinion request for review and prepared two draft

advisory opinions, which were posted for public comment. Dkt. 28-2 at 144 (Ex. B at 143). One

draft, “Draft A,” proposed to approve joint-fundraising committees’ funding of the full cost of

the proposed ads without any on-screen disclaimer. Dkt. 46 at 55–67 (AR 51–63). The other,

“Draft B,” proposed to conclude that only the final few seconds of the ad in which the

solicitation occurred could be funded without counting as a contribution or coordinated

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expenditure. Id. at 68–80 (AR 64–76). After a period of public comment and an open meeting

to discuss the issue, neither draft received the required four votes. Three commissioners voted in

favor of Draft A, and the other three voted in favor of Draft B, leaving the FEC deadlocked. Id.

at 151 (AR 147). On October 10, 2024, the FEC sent a letter notifying the DSCC that the

Commission “was unable to render an opinion in this matter” and closing out the request. Id. at

152 (AR 148).

The DSCC did not pursue the matter further. But its sister campaign committee, the

DCCC, filed this suit on October 17, 2024, challenging the FEC’s non-issuance of an advisory

opinion as arbitrary and capricious, not in accordance with law, and contrary to constitutional

rights in violation of the APA, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2). Dkt. 1. The DCCC also sought a preliminary

injunction and requested that the Court consolidate the injunction with an expedited trial on the

merits pursuant to Rule 65(a)(2) or issue a “preliminary injunction” vacating and setting aside

the FEC’s October 10, 2024, Closeout Letter. DCCC I, 2024 WL 4650907, at *2. After the

NRSC intervened, and all three parties briefed the motion and presented oral argument, the Court

denied the DCCC’s motion on the ground that the requested relief—temporarily setting aside the

October 10, 2024, Closeout Letter—“would neither redress the DCCC’s asserted injuries nor

avoid any irreparable injury that the DCCC would otherwise suffer.” Id. at *6.

Following the Court’s denial of preliminary relief, the DCCC amended its complaint, see

Dkt. 28, and both the FEC and the NRSC moved to dismiss, see Dkt. 32; Dkt. 34. The DCCC, in

turn, cross-moved for summary judgment. See Dkt. 37. Shortly after these motions were fully

briefed, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in NRSC, and the Court stayed these proceedings

pending a decision in that case. On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court issued its decision in

NRSC. The Court overruled its decision in FEC v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign

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Committee, 533 U.S. 431 (2001) (hereinafter “Colorado II”), and held that FECA’s limits on

coordinated party expenditures violated the First Amendment and are therefore unenforceable.

NRSC, 146 S. Ct. 2404. Following a hearing on the effect of the Supreme Court’s decision in

NRSC on the DCCC’s claim, the Court directed the parties to file supplemental briefing

addressing, inter alia, whether NRSC rendered DCCC’s claims moot and whether DCCC has

established an informational injury sufficient to support Article III standing. See Dkt. 57 at 62

(Tr. 62:1–14); Min. Order (July 29, 2026).

The Court now considers the FEC’s and the NRSC’s Motions to dismiss and the DCCC’s

Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

“Because subject-matter jurisdiction focuses on the court’s power to hear the plaintiff’s

claim, a Rule 12(b)(1) motion imposes on the court an affirmative obligation to ensure that it is

acting within the scope of its jurisdictional authority.” Blackwood of DC, LLC v. IRS, No. 23-cv-

7, 2024 WL 5044606, at *2 (D.D.C. Sept. 11, 2024). The Court must dismiss any claim over

which it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction. See Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 506–07

(2006).

A motion pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) seeking dismissal for lack

of subject-matter jurisdiction may take one of two different forms. First, a Rule 12(b)(1) motion

“may raise a ‘facial’ challenge to the Court’s jurisdiction.” Hale v. United States, No. 13-cv-

1390, 2015 WL 7760161, at *3 (D.D.C. Dec. 2, 2015). A facial challenge asks whether the

complaint alleges facts sufficient to establish the court’s jurisdiction. See Lujan v. Defs. of

Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992); see also Owner-Operator Indep. Drivers Ass’n v. U.S. Dep’t

of Transp., 879 F.3d 339, 346–47 (D.C. Cir. 2018). In this posture, the Court must accept the

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factual allegations of the complaint as true and construe them in the light most favorable to the

non-moving party. Erby v. United States, 424 F. Supp. 2d 180, 182 (D.D.C. 2006) (collecting

cases).

“Alternatively, a Rule 12(b)(1) motion may pose a ‘factual’ challenge to the Court’s

jurisdiction.” Hale, 2015 WL 7760161, at *3. When a motion to dismiss is framed in this

manner, “the [C]ourt may not deny the motion . . . merely by assuming the truth of the facts

alleged by the plaintiff and disputed by the defendant” but “must go beyond the pleadings and

resolve any disputed issues of fact the resolution of which is necessary to a ruling upon the

motion to dismiss.” Phoenix Consulting, Inc. v. Republic of Angola, 216 F.3d 36, 40 (D.C. Cir.

2000). “The [C]ourt has considerable latitude in devising the procedures it will follow to ferret

out the facts pertinent to jurisdiction,” so long as it “afford[s] the nonmoving party an ample

opportunity to secure and present evidence relevant to the existence of jurisdiction.” Prakash v.

Am. Univ., 727 F.2d 1174, 1179–80 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (citation modified).

A motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), in contrast, “tests

the legal sufficiency of a complaint.” Browning v. Clinton, 292 F.3d 235, 242 (D.C. Cir. 2002);

see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). In evaluating such a motion, the Court “must first ‘tak[e] note of

the elements a plaintiff must plead to state [the] claim’ to relief, and then determine whether the

plaintiff has pleaded those elements with adequate factual support to ‘state a claim to relief that

is plausible on its face.’” Blue v. District of Columbia, 811 F.3d 14, 20 (D.C. Cir. 2015)

(alterations in original) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 675, 678 (2009)). The

complaint need not include “detailed factual allegations,” and a plaintiff may survive a Rule

12(b)(6) motion even if “recovery is very remote and unlikely,” so long as the facts alleged in the

complaint are “enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Bell Atl. Corp. v.

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Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555–56 (2007) (citation modified). The Court may consider only “the

facts contained within the four corners of the complaint,” Nat’l Postal Pro. Nurses v. U.S. Postal

Serv., 461 F. Supp. 2d 24, 28 (D.D.C. 2006), along with “any documents attached to or

incorporated into the complaint, matters of which the court may take judicial notice, and matters

of public record,” United States ex rel. Head v. Kane Co., 798 F. Supp. 2d 186, 193 (D.D.C.

2011).

Finally, the Court can reach the DCCC’s motion for summary judgment only if it first

clears the preceding jurisdictional and pleading hurdles. Summary judgment is appropriate

under Rule 56 when the pleadings and the evidence demonstrate that “there is no genuine dispute

as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P.

56(a). “In a case involving review of a final agency action under the [APA], however, the

standard set forth in Rule 56(a) does not apply because of the limited role of a court in reviewing

the administrative record.” Kadi v. Geithner, 42 F. Supp. 3d 1, 8 (D.D.C. 2012) (citation

omitted). In the unique context of a case brought under the APA, the district court “sit[s] as an

appellate tribunal,” Marshall Cnty. Health Care Auth. v. Shalala, 988 F.2d 1221, 1222–23 (D.C.

Cir. 1993), to decide “as a matter of law [whether] the agency action is supported by the

administrative record and is otherwise consistent with the APA standard of review,” Coal. for

Common Sense in Gov’t Procurement v. United States, 821 F. Supp. 2d 275, 280 (D.D.C. 2011);

see also Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 415 (1971); Sw. Merch.

Corp. v. NLRB, 53 F.3d 1334, 1341 (D.C. Cir. 1995). The APA directs courts to “hold unlawful

and set aside agency action” that is “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not

in accordance with law,” as well as agency actions taken “in excess of statutory jurisdiction,

authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2). In an APA case,

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summary judgment “serves as a ‘mechanism for deciding, as a matter of law, whether the agency

action is . . . consistent with the APA standard of review.’” Fisher v. Pension Benefit Guar.

Corp., 468 F. Supp. 3d 7, 18 (D.D.C. 2020) (citation modified).

III. ANALYSIS

At this juncture, the Court must determine whether the Supreme Court’s intervening

decision invalidating FECA’s limits on coordinated party expenditures has rendered Plaintiff’s

claim moot and, if anything remains of that claim, whether the DCCC has established its Article

III standing to pursue its requested relief.

The DCCC’s Amended Complaint alleges that the FEC’s Closeout Letter and

corresponding failure to issue an advisory opinion violated FECA and the APA in three respects.

First, the DCCC alleges that the FEC’s non-issuance of an opinion was “not in accordance with

law” because “the FEC did not fulfill its duty to administer and uphold FECA’s plain

contribution and party coordinated expenditure limits.” Dkt. 28 at 30 (Am. Compl. ¶ 97).

Second, it alleges that the FEC’s non-issuance of an opinion was arbitrary and capricious

because three Commissioners’ votes “reflect[] a plainly incorrect and implausible understanding

of FECA.” Id. (Am. Compl. ¶ 97). And finally, it alleges that the FEC’s non-issuance of an

opinion was contrary to the DCCC’s constitutional rights because the FEC “deprived [the]

DCCC of safe harbor protection from enforcement actions against JFC [joint-fundraising

committee] advertising in excess of FECA’s limits in future elections, chilling Plaintiff from

engaging in what would otherwise be protected speech (if such expenditures are consistent with

FECA), while the agency nonetheless tolerates and acquiesces to similar behavior from

Plaintiff’s competitors.” Id. at 31 (Am. Compl. ¶ 97). The DCCC requested that the Court

“[d]eclare that JFC-advertising expenditures, as defined and described in [the DSCC’s advisory

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opinion request], constitute ‘contributions’ under 52 U.S.C. § 30116(a)(7)(B)(i) and are thus

subject to FECA’s limits”; “[h]old unlawful and set aside the FEC’s October 10, 2024[,]

Closeout Letter” under the APA; or, in the alternative, “permanently enjoin the FEC from

pursuing enforcement actions or otherwise prosecuting DCCC for engaging in JFC-advertising in

excess of FECA contribution limits.” Id. at 31 (Prayer for Relief).

In its supplemental briefing, the DCCC does not dispute that the subject of the DSCC’s

initial request—whether party committees may “finance” advertisements like the ones described

without running afoul of FECA’s limits on coordinated party expenditures—was rendered moot

by the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the statutory limits that gave rise to the controversy. The

DCCC nonetheless continues to press its APA challenge to the FEC’s non-issuance of an

advisory opinion on the ground that the non-decision has inflicted an informational injury on the

DCCC by failing to clarify that the NRSC’s (and the NCCC’s) spending on joint-fundraising

advertisements like the ones described is subject to FECA’s reporting requirements for

coordinated party expenditures. See Dkt. 60 (DCCC Supp. Mem.) (focusing entirely on DCCC’s

theory of informational injury); Dkt. 57 at 10 (Tr. 10:2–9) (stating, “I won’t . . . dispute the fact

that a major part of our pleadings was about not wanting to allow for circumvention of

coordinated expenditure cap that are no longer enforceable” but arguing that the DCCC’s

“informational injury has been there” and preserves jurisdiction).

The Court agrees with the parties that the Supreme Court’s intervening decision

overruling Colorado II and invalidating FECA’s coordinated-party-expenditure limits has

mooted the issue that the DSCC presented to the FEC and on which the DCCC’s APA claim is

almost entirely focused. After the Supreme Court’s invalidation of FECA’s coordinated-party-

expenditure limits, a judgment by this Court setting aside the FEC’s Closeout Letter, declaring

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that the advertisements described are subject to those limits, or enjoining the FEC from enforcing

those limits against the DCCC with respect to similar advertisements would not redress any

injury resulting from the DCCC’s inability to compete on an equal playing field with the NRSC

or any other national committee in terms of dollars spent on joint-fundraising ads of the sort

described in the request. Even assuming that the advertisements in question (or all but the last

few seconds of those ads) fall within FECA’s provisions governing coordinated party

expenditures, the DCCC’s concern about the NRSC’s circumvention of FECA’s limits on such

expenditures no longer presents a live controversy. Alleged circumvention of funding limits

does not sustain a justiciable controversy once an intervening event, like the Supreme Court’s

decision here, has rendered those limits otherwise unenforceable. And, to the extent the DCCC

wishes to fund its own advertisements like the ones described, it, too, may do so without regard

to FECA’s now-invalidated limits on coordinated party expenditures.

Nor does the DCCC’s eleventh-hour shift to a theory of informational injury rescue its

claim. Although the Court does not doubt that the DCCC could suffer a cognizable

informational injury from the NRSC’s failure to disclose information about its joint-fundraising

advertisements, the DCCC has failed to establish that any informational injury related to the

NRSC’s alleged noncompliance with FECA’s reporting requirements is traceable to the FEC’s

non-issuance of an advisory opinion based on its deadlock regarding a request submitted by a

party not before this Court on a question about FECA’s contribution limits that is no longer live.

Nor has the DCCC established that a judicial decision vacating the FEC’s October 10, 2024,

Closeout Letter would redress any such injury. The Court accordingly lacks jurisdiction to

adjudicate DCCC’s claim, which, despite its presentation as an APA claim for review of what

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DCCC contends is an FEC “action,” is wholly untethered from both the request submitted to the

agency and the action the agency took.

A. Mootness

The doctrine of mootness, derived from Article III’s limit on the federal judicial power,

“ensures that federal courts decide only ‘actual, ongoing controversies.’” Pub. Citizen, Inc. v.

FERC, 92 F.4th 1124, 1127 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (quoting Honig v. Doe, 484 U.S. 305, 317 (1988)).

Mootness is a “threshold jurisdictional issue.” Gjoci v. U.S. Dep’t of State, 171 F.4th 430, 434

(D.C. Cir. 2026) (citation modified). “Among other salutary purposes,” the doctrine “protects

courts from rendering impermissible advisory opinions.” Pub. Citizen, 92 F.4th at 1128 (citation

modified). The mootness doctrine directs that a federal court may not decide a case when an

intervening event has transpired such that the court “cannot grant any effectual relief.” Mehneh

v. Rubio, 164 F.4th 928, 931 (D.C. Cir. 2026); see Gjoci, 171 F.4th at 435.

At least at times, an intervening change in law can moot a claim. See Samma v. Dep’t of

Def., 136 F.4th 1108, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2025) (explaining that an agency’s repeal of a regulation

can moot a case); Gulf Oil Corp. v. Brock, 778 F.2d 834, 840 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (recognizing that

“a judicial decision [that] has changed the underlying law . . . can moot a case in the same

fashion [as] legislative action repealing or amending a statute”). To be sure, a change in the law

that undermines the merits of a claim does not necessarily implicate the court’s jurisdiction; an

intervening decision establishing binding precedent at odds with the plaintiff’s theory of the case

will generally pose a problem only on the merits. Here, however, the Supreme Court’s decision

in NRSC is different in nature; it did not change the law that the Court must apply on the merits

but rather deprived the merits of the case of any legal significance, much as the repeal of a

statute that a court was asked to interpret might do. Under the state of affairs in place when the

DCCC’s amended complaint was filed, the question whether joint-fundraising advertisements

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were coordinated party expenditures under FECA was significant because FECA imposed limits

on those expenditures. The DCCC—and the original party that requested the advisory opinion,

DSCC—were concerned that the NRSC maintained a competitive advantage in elections because

it used these so-called joint-fundraising advertisements to spend significantly more money in

support of particular candidates than would be permitted under FECA’s limits on coordinated

party expenditures. See Dkt. 28 at 21–22 (Am. Compl. ¶ 61). But the result of the Court’s

decision in NRSC is that FECA’s coordinated-party-expenditure limits are no longer

enforceable—as if the relevant statutory provisions were repealed. That is precisely the sort of

intervening development that can moot a previously viable challenge to an FEC decision about

when and how those provisions apply. See Gulf Oil Corp., 778 F.2d at 840 (“If intervening

events that change the law can moot challenges to the validity of a statute or regulation, then a

fortiori such events can moot challenges to applications of the provision.”).

At least two of DCCC’s three arguments for why the Court should set aside the FEC’s

Closeout Letter plainly no longer present live issues after the Supreme Court’s decision. The

DCCC’s contention that the FEC failed to uphold FECA’s coordinated-party-expenditure limits

cannot form the basis of a live controversy after the Supreme Court’s invalidation of those limits.

Similarly, the DCCC’s contention that the FEC’s non-decision was “contrary to constitutional

right[s]” because it “deprived [the] DCCC of safe harbor protection from enforcement actions

against JFC-advertising in excess of FECA’s limits in future elections,” Dkt. 28 at 30–31 (Am.

Compl. ¶ 97), has been rendered moot by the Supreme Court’s decision. The same is true with

respect to the DCCC’s corresponding request for an injunction to prevent the FEC from

enforcing the coordinated-party-expenditure limits against it. With respect to the FEC’s alleged

failure to uphold the limits, the Court cannot grant any relief that would redress an injury

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stemming from the FEC’s nonenforcement of FECA’s coordinated-party-expenditure limits,

since those limits are now unenforceable under binding Supreme Court precedent. And with

respect to the DCCC’s request for its own safe harbor, NRSC effectively granted DCCC the relief

that it seeks. With the invalidation of FECA’s limits, the DCCC may spend the same amounts

on these joint-fundraising advertisements as the NRSC —whether or not the ads are coordinated

party expenditures. That is, the Supreme Court’s decision “allow[s] all political parties—

including the DNC and RNC and the respective Senate and House campaign committees—

to . . . coordinate more closely with their candidates.” NRSC, 146 S. Ct. at 2428. A decision by

this Court holding either that the NRSC has engaged in advertisements that violate the now-

unenforceable coordinated-party-expenditure caps or that the DCCC is entitled to a safe harbor

from enforcement of those now-unenforceable caps thus cannot provide any effectual relief.

Mootness disposes of the majority of the DCCC’s claim, as the DCCC itself appears to

concede. See Dkt. 57 at 10 (Tr. 10:2–9). Perhaps in recognition of the insurmountable

jurisdictional hurdles that the DCCC would face if it continued to rely on the expenditure-limit

theory on which its complaint initially focused, the DCCC in its supplemental briefing shifts

course. It continues to press its request that the Court set aside the FEC’s October 10, 2024, non-

decision and declare that the advertisements described are coordinated party expenditures. See

Dkt. 60 (DCCC Supp. Mem.). But the DCCC now focuses exclusively on a theory of injury that

is unmoored from the request for an advisory opinion that the DSCC presented to the FEC and to

which the DCCC has sought to secure an answer in this litigation.

The DCCC contends that it has standing to challenge the FEC’s non-issuance of an

advisory opinion and to obtain its requested relief based on an informational injury resulting

from its competitor campaign committees’ failure to report their joint-fundraising advertisements

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as coordinated party expenditures under FECA’s disclosure provisions. Because the Supreme

Court’s decision in NRSC did not alter FECA’s reporting requirement—and, indeed, invokes

disclosure requirements as “a much stronger anti-circumvention tool” and as a means of

deterring actual corruption and the appearance of corruption, NRSC, 146 S. Ct. at 2421—the

decision did not moot the DCCC’s APA challenge, at least to the extent the DCCC’s challenge

focuses on disclosure. The question for the Court, then, is whether the NRSC’s (and the

NRCC’s) failure to report that it has made coordinated expenditures on the ads at issue is

sufficient to support the DCCC’s standing to challenge the FEC’s non-issuance of an advisory

opinion about whether these ads are subject to FECA’s coordinated-party-expenditure limits.

B. Standing

The DCCC contends that it continues to suffer an informational injury as a result of the

FEC’s non-issuance of an advisory opinion because the Commission’s failure to categorize

properly the NRSC’s advertisements has deprived the DCCC of information to which it has a

statutory entitlement. Dkt. 60 at 6–10 (DCCC Supp. Mem. at 1–5). And the DCCC maintains

that this informational injury establishes its standing to seek both vacatur of the FEC’s October

10, 2024, Closeout Letter and a declaratory judgment that the advertisements at issue constitute

coordinated party expenditures within the meaning of FECA’s disclosure provisions. Id.

Although the DCCC may have suffered an injury-in-fact that might support Article III standing

in an appropriate case, the Court concludes that the DCCC has not shown—and cannot show—

that any such injury is traceable to the FEC’s non-issuance of an advisory opinion about an

entirely different question, nor that any such injury is redressable by vacatur of that non-decision.

See DCCC I, 2024 WL 4650907, at *8–10.

To establish standing under Article III, a plaintiff must demonstrate that “(1) it has

suffered an ‘injury in fact’ that is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not

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conjectural or hypothetical; (2) the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged action of the

defendant; and (3) it is likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed

by a favorable decision.” Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Env’t Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528

U.S. 167, 180–81 (2000). A plaintiff may establish Article III standing based on an

informational injury “when the plaintiff fails to obtain information which must be publicly

disclosed pursuant to a statute.” Akins, 524 U.S. at 21. To establish a concrete and

particularized informational injury, a plaintiff must allege that “(1) it has been deprived of

information that, on its interpretation, a statute requires the government or a third party to

disclose to it, and (2) it suffers, by being denied access to that information, the type of harm

Congress sought to prevent by requiring disclosure.” Friends of Animals v. Jewell, 828 F.3d

989, 992 (D.C. Cir. 2016).

Here, the DCCC alleges that it is suffering an informational injury because FECA’s

reporting requirements for coordinated party expenditures require the NRSC and other national

committees to disclose certain details about their coordinated expenditures, and the DCCC’s lack

of access to these disclosures disadvantages the DCCC with respect to its spending strategy in

competitive elections. Dkt. 28 at 28–29 (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 89–90); Dkt. 60 at 6–10 (DCCC Supp.

Mem. at 1–5). Because the Court concludes that the DCCC has not satisfied the necessary

elements of traceability and redressability, the Court need not decide whether the committee’s

allegations establish a cognizable informational injury, although the Court does not doubt that

the failure to report information of which FECA requires disclosure could, in an appropriate

case, support such an injury. See Akins, 524 U.S. at 21.

The traceability and redressability prongs of the standing analysis are closely related.

Whereas traceability “requires the plaintiff to show that the injury was likely caused by the”

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challenged action, redressability asks whether “the injury would likely be redressed by judicial

relief.” Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC v. EPA, 606 U.S. 100, 111 (2025)(citation modified).

In suits challenging agency action for authorizing or failing to prevent the injurious actions of

third parties (such as a third party’s failure to disclose helpful information), “traceability turns on

the causal nexus between the agency action and the asserted injury, while redressability centers

on the causal connection between the asserted injury and judicial relief.” Freedom Republicans,

Inc. v. FEC, 13 F.3d 412, 418 (D.C. Cir. 1994). Unsurprisingly, although redressability may in

certain cases “pose an independent bar” to standing, redressability typically follows causation

because “[i]f a defendant’s action causes an injury, enjoining the action or awarding damages for

the action will typically redress that injury.” FDA v. All. for Hippocratic Med., 602 U.S. 367,

381 & n.1 (2024).

The Court begins with the ground it tread in its previous decision denying the DCCC’s

motion for a preliminary injunction, which sought, at least temporarily, to set aside the October

10, 2024, Closeout Letter. See DCCC I, 2024 WL 4650907, at *6 (“At this stage of the

litigation, the DCCC seeks only one form of preliminary relief: it asks the Court—at least

temporarily—to set aside the FEC’s response notifying the DSCC that the Commission was

unable to approve an advisory opinion by the required affirmative vote of four members.”). In

rejecting the DCCC’s request, the Court explained why vacatur of the non-decision to close out

the advisory opinion request would not redress any informational injury the DCCC was

suffering. As the Court noted, the October 10, 2024, Closeout Letter “takes no position on

whether the funds at issue constitute contributions that are subject to the disclosure

requirements.” Id. at *10. And vacating that letter “would . . . have no legal bearing on the

DCCC’s alleged informational injury” because “[n]othing in the Court’s order would require the

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FEC to bring an enforcement action” against the NRSC for failure to comply with FECA’s

reporting obligations, nor would the Court’s vacatur require the FEC to issue an advisory opinion

reaching any particular substantive outcome. Id.

Nor, contrary to the DCCC’s contentions, is this a circumstance in which vacatur would

provide the DCCC relief by “affording the agency a new opportunity to issue a lawful [advisory

opinion] that would help redress [the] DCCC’s injuries.” Dkt. 60 at 11 (DCCC Supp. Mem. at

6). When a plaintiff has been injured by a discretionary agency decision infected with legal

error, the Supreme Court has instructed that traceability and redressability are not destroyed

simply because the agency, despite the correction of its legal error, might later reach the same

substantive conclusion for different reasons. See Akins, 524 U.S. at 25. Instead, the mere

possibility that the agency might exercise its discretion differently on remand suffices to

establish the latter two elements of standing. Id. But that principle is a poor fit where, as here,

the challenged agency decision does not foreclose the DCCC—nor the actual requester, the

DSCC—from returning to the agency with a new request for an advisory opinion on the question

that the DCCC now asks the Court to adjudicate. And that fit is even shoddier when, as here, the

question that the DCCC wants answered is not the same question that the DSCC posed to the

FEC in 2024 and when, as here, intervening Supreme Court precedent has fundamentally

reworked the law governing the question that the DSCC did pose. Vacatur of the Closeout Letter

is thus unnecessary—and ineffectual—to clear aside a legally erroneous agency action for the

purpose of allowing the agency another turn at the issue.

The Akins Court’s view of redressability is also inapposite when, as here, the reason for

the initial agency decision would be unaffected by a decision in the plaintiff’s favor. The FEC’s

letter indicates that the sole reason for the FEC’s non-issuance of the requested advisory opinion

25

was the agency’s inability to achieve the “affirmative vote of four members.” Dkt. 46 at 152

(AR 148) (citing 52 U.S.C. §§ 30106(c), 30107(a)(7)). Even if the Court were to set aside the

FEC’s Closeout Letter, the DCCC has not established that the vacatur would have any effect on

the votes of the individual commissioners on remand; to the contrary, it verges on a fait accompli

that, on remand, the FEC would simply point to the Supreme Court’s decision in NRSC and issue

an advisory opinion answering the DSCC’s principal question in the affirmative: Yes, a joint-

fundraising committee can finance the entire cost of the proposed television advertising because

the political-party coordinated-expenditure limits are unconstitutional. Under those

circumstances, there would be no reason for the agency to address the separate question, not

raised by the DSCC’s 2024 request, whether those expenditures should nonetheless be reported

as coordinated expenditures. And, for similar reasons, the DCCC has failed to demonstrate that

the reopening of DSCC’s request for a safe harbor from enforcement of FECA’s contribution

limits would—or could—result in agency action requiring enforcement against the NRSC or

other committees of FECA’s reporting requirements in a manner that would remedy the DCCC’s

alleged informational injury.

These same considerations also undercut the DCCC’s ability to satisfy the causation

requirement for Article III standing based on its alleged informational injury. The DCCC bases

its asserted injury on its inability to obtain information to which, the DCCC contends, it is

statutorily entitled. See Dkt. 60 at 6–10 (DCCC Supp. Mem. at 1–5). But that is not the question

that the DSCC posed to the FEC, nor the question that the Commission declined to resolve.

True, as DCCC’s counsel has pointed out, the question that it now poses—whether the ads

constitute coordinated expenditures for purpose of FECA’s reporting requirements—and the

question that the DSCC posed—whether the ads constitute coordinated expenditures for

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purposes of FECA’s contribution limits—turn in part on the antecedent question of how to

classify the described advertisements. See Dkt. 57 at 9–10 (Tr. 9:23–10:1). Article III causation,

however, requires a nexus “between the injury and the conduct complained of,” Lujan, 504 U.S.

at 560, and, here, the conduct complained of is “[t]he FEC’s failure to issue an advisory opinion”

resolving the question posed by the DSCC, Dkt. 28 at 30 (Am. Compl. ¶ 97).

According to the DCCC, the FEC’s issuance of the Closeout Letter violated the APA

because the agency failed to “uphold FECA’s plain contribution and party expenditure limits,”

misunderstood FECA, and “deprived [the] DCCC of safe harbor protection from enforcement

actions against JFC-advertising in excess of FECA’s limits.” Id. at 30–31 (Am. Compl. ¶ 97).

In other words, the DSCC sought an advisory opinion to ensure that FECA’s coordinated party

expenditure limits are applied in an even-handed manner, and the DCCC’s complaint alleges that

the FEC violated the APA by failing to answer that question. The DCCC asks the Court to

ignore the disconnect between the conduct complained of, which focuses on expenditure limits,

and the asserted injury, which focuses on the Act’s separate reporting requirements. But it

stretches traditional notions of Article III causation past the snapping point to posit that a third-

party, who might have indirectly benefited from the safe-harbor rule, has standing to challenge

the agency’s failure to act, not because the agency should have issued an opinion resolving the

question actually posed, but because had it done so, the agency’s decision would likely have

included reasoning that would likely have shed important light on a different question. Among

other difficulties, that theory is too “attenuated” to satisfy Article III, All. for Hippocratic Med.,

602 U.S. at 383, and it would open the door to scores of challenges to administrative decisions,

not because the plaintiff is aggrieved by the outcome of the agency action or inaction—that is,

27

“the conduct complained of”—but because the agency’s reasoning (or failure to offer reasoning)

might bear on different questions in the future.

The DCCC’s inability to establish traceability between the FEC’s Closeout Letter and the

informational injury it currently asserts before the Court also forecloses its standing to seek a

declaratory judgment that the joint-fundraising ads are subject to FECA’s reporting requirements

for coordinated party expenditures. Contra Dkt. 60 at 11–12 (DCCC Supp. Mem. at 6–7)

(arguing that a declaratory judgment in DCCC’s favor would provide effectual relief). Perhaps a

judgment declaring that the joint-fundraising ads described constitute coordinated party

expenditures would not suffer from the same redressability defect as the DCCC’s request for

vacatur given the possibility that a declaratory judgment would have preclusive effect. See

Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U.S. 255, 293 (2023). But the DCCC’s claim for declaratory relief,

like its request for vacatur, suffers from a fundamental misalignment between the agency action

challenged and the DCCC’s reason for challenging it, i.e., its asserted injury. Even if the DCCC

suffers some type of injury because the NRSC and other committees do not report their joint-

fundraising expenditures as coordinated party expenditures, the DCCC’s suggestion that the

FEC’s non-issuance of an advisory opinion about FECA’s contribution limits caused that

informational injury borders on incoherent.

The Supreme Court’s and D.C. Circuit’s informational-injury cases involve a typical

sequence: a plaintiff seeks information from a government agency, the agency takes some action

that denies the plaintiff access to that information, and the plaintiff sues, contending that the

agency has deprived it of information to which it has a statutory right. E.g., Akins, 524 U.S. at

16–18 (challenging the FEC’s dismissal of a complaint asking the FEC “to order [a political

organization] to make public the information that FECA demands of a ‘political committee’’”);

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Shays v. FEC, 528 F.3d 914, 923 (D.C. Cir. 2008) (challenging an FEC regulation adopting a

definition of “coordinated communications” that excluded certain expenditures from required

disclosure). For traceability, the key feature of the challenged agency action is that the action in

some way denies the plaintiff access to the information sought—such as by the agency’s own

refusal to provide it, Pub. Citizen v. DOJ, 491 U.S. 440, 449 (1989), the agency’s refusal to order

a third party to provide it, Akins, 524 U.S. at 16–18, or the agency’s affirmative authorization of

the information’s nondisclosure, Shays, 528 U.S. at 923.

The necessary causal connection between the agency action and the informational injury

is established by the agency’s “affirmative” action refusing disclosure or authorizing

nondisclosure. DCCC I, 2024 WL 4650907, at *8. A non-decision on a request for an advisory

opinion that made no mention of disclosure requirements and that, instead, sought advice only

about contribution limits, cannot be said to have caused an informational injury for purposes of

Article III, even if a decision by the agency resolving the advisory opinion request might have

included relevant reasoning. 1 Cf. Telecomm’ns Rsch. & Action Ctr. v. FCC, 917 F.2d 585, 588

(D.C. Cir. 1990) (holding that a party’s “interest in the Commission’s legal reasoning and its

potential precedential effect does not by itself confer standing where, as here, it is ‘uncoupled’

1

To be sure, the fact that the DSCC sought an advisory opinion arguably implicates the FEC’s

reasoning to a greater degree than if the claim challenged a more typical adjudication for which

the substantive outcome is of primary import. In the context of an advisory-opinion request, the

question posed is, in one sense, how the agency reads FECA’s provisions defining coordinated

party expenditures and contributions, and that interpretation could affect the requester’s later

actions. But ultimately, the purpose of providing an advisory opinion is to tell the requester and

other identically situated parties whether the conduct at issue is lawful. See 52 U.S.C.

§ 30108(a)(1) (providing that, upon “a complete written request concerning the application of

[the] Act . . . with respect to a specific transaction or activity, . . . the Commission shall render a

written advisory opinion relating to such transaction or activity” (emphasis added)). Here, the

relevant conduct—i.e., the relevant “transaction or activity”—involved the amounts that the

DSCC could fund with respect to the joint-fundraising ads described, not whether the committee

had to report expenditures on those ads under FECA’s disclosure provisions.

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from any injury in fact caused by the substance of the [agency’s] adjudicatory action”);

Radiofone, Inc. v. FCC, 759 F.2d 936, 938–39 (D.C. Cir. 1985) (separate opinion of Scalia, J.)

(explaining that, to support Article III standing, an “injury must . . . arise from the particular

activity which the agency adjudication has approved . . . and not from the mere precedential

effect of the agency’s rationale in later adjudications”). Absent that causal connection, the

DCCC cannot establish its standing to challenge the FEC’s non-decision based on its alleged

informational injury.

The observation that the DCCC’s informational-injury claim is unmoored from the

agency action it purports to challenge bears on the merits of the DCCC’s APA claim as well as

the jurisdictional question whether the DCCC has standing to raise its APA claim. Ordinarily,

the Court is bound by the principle that a federal court may not pass upon the merits of a claim

until it has assured itself of its jurisdiction. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 U.S. 83,

101–02 (1998). But the Supreme Court has recognized a rare category of cases in which the

question of subject-matter jurisdiction is so intertwined with the merits of a dispute that the court

may decide them simultaneously. See Brownback v. King, 592 U.S. 209, 218 (2021); see also

Bolivarian Repub. of Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne Int’l Drilling Co., 581 U.S. 170, 178

(2017). Here, the reasons that the DCCC’s alleged informational injury does not establish its

Article III standing to challenge the FEC’s non-decision are the same reasons the Court doubts

the APA provides a cause of action for a declaratory judgment of the kind the DCCC seeks, even

assuming the FEC’s Closeout Letter is a reviewable final agency action.

The APA sets up a particular “relationship between the agencies and the courts” under

which federal courts are obligated to review actions actually taken by agencies for the reasons

those agencies took them. Callejo v. Resol. Tr. Corp., 17 F.3d 1497, 1500 (D.C. Cir. 1994); see

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SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196 (1947). Unlike in a “garden variety civil suit,” a

district court reviewing an APA challenge to an agency action “does not perform its normal role

but instead sits as an appellate tribunal.” Palisades Gen. Hosp. Inc. v. Leavitt, 426 F.3d 400, 403

(D.C. Cir. 2005) (citation modified). Despite the Court’s responsibility to exercise its

independent judgment in matters of statutory interpretation, Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo,

603 U.S. 369, 392–94 (2024), the Court is generally not permitted to exercise such judgment

untethered from any agency action under review.

The APA “establishes a cause of action for those ‘suffering legal wrong because of

agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action.’” Koretoff v. Vilsack, 614

F.3d 532, 536 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (quoting 5 U.S.C. § 702) (emphases added). Where, as here, the

plaintiff’s injury is not caused by the challenged agency action, the plaintiff not only lacks

standing but also cannot state an APA claim upon which relief can be granted. Because the

Court concludes that the DCCC has not satisfied Article III’s requirements for jurisdiction over

its claim, the Court need not determine conclusively whether the DCCC has stated a cause of

action under the APA. But the questions are essentially the same. For Article III purposes, the

DCCC cannot challenge the FEC’s failure to issue an advisory opinion resolving, even

incidentally, a question that was not posed to the agency. And for purposes of the APA, the

DCCC lacks a cause of action to challenge the agency’s non-issuance of a decision based on a

substantive disagreement with reasoning adopted by less than a majority of the six

commissioners and seeking resolution of an issue never presented to the agency in the first

instance.

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CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, Defendant’s and Intervenor-Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss,

Dkts. 32, 34, are hereby GRANTED, and Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment, Dkt. 37, is

hereby DENIED.

SO ORDERED.

/s/ Randolph D. Moss

RANDOLPH D. MOSS

United States District Judge

Date: September 3, 2026

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