An appeals court gives the FCC until noon Friday to rule on cheaper ad rates for parties

A split Fourth Circuit panel on Wednesday ordered the Federal Communications Commission to decide by noon Friday, Oct. 9, whether party-coordinated ads and joint fundraising committees qualify for broadcasters’ lowest political ad rates. The petitioners are Democratic candidates Sherrod Brown, Jon Ossoff, Roy Cooper and Kristen McDonald Rivet.

The FCC’s Media Bureau extended those rates in March. The Fourth Circuit set that guidance aside in August, but the Supreme Court stayed the ruling in September because the full commission had not acted. Judges King and Wynn wrote that “the FCC has thumbed its nose at Congress’s statutory commands and the settled principle of judicial review.”

The expanded rates stay in effect for now.