Democrats are hoping to dampen the GOP’s midterm cash advantage after Republicans scored a major win allowing unlimited coordination between political parties and candidates.

Republican campaign arms say they can access discounted TV ad rates after the Supreme Court lifted a cap on coordinated expenditures between committees and candidates. Broadcast stations must offer the lowest rate to candidates, while super PACs and other groups pay more for TV time. The Supreme Court ruling did not address the lowest unit rate.

But Democrats hope to stymie the possibility that committees might have access to the cheaper candidate rate. A Democratic lawsuit seeks to halt the ability of campaign committees from either party to tap into cheaper time on the airwaves. The suit challenges Federal Communications Commission guidance from March clarifying coordinated expenditures are entitled to the federally mandated lower rates.

“It’s just a partisan attempt to fuel this desperate plea by the Republicans to get this low, low rate for party committee advertising,” Jacquelyn Lopez, an elections lawyer representing the suit from Democrats, told the Washington Examiner. “On the Democratic side of the aisle, our candidates have an incredible fundraising advantage.”

Democrats feel a greater impetus to block party committees from accessing the lowest rate since Republican committees have more cash than their Democratic counterparts. Meanwhile, Democratic candidates hold a fundraising advantage over Republican candidates.

Lopez’s firm, Elias Law Group, is led by Marc Elias, the Democratic election lawyer who frequently tussles with the GOP in court. His firm brought the lawsuit on behalf of four Democratic candidates and was also involved in the Supreme Court case.

The Democratic lawsuit alleges the FCC guidance conflicts with a section of the Communications Act that entitles candidates to the so-called lowest unit charge. Just hours after the Supreme Court handed down its ruling, the judge granted a motion from Democrats to fast-track their case. Opening briefs are due Monday.

“We’re here because the the FCC is taking a position based on purely a desire of the Republican Party to make the law say something other than what it says,” Lopez told the Washington Examiner.

Lopez argues the law cited by the FCC only grants the individual candidate the lowest rate and that the FCC guidance references a different subsection of that law.

Broadcast stations have discretion over whether they want to grant coordinated buys the lowest rate and have typically done so in recent years. Coordinated buys made up a small fraction of TV time purchased but are expected to skyrocket after the Supreme Court struck down the limits.

Republicans see the legal challenge as Elias’s latest frivolous venture that, even if successful in the lower courts, would eventually face the same Supreme Court justices who sided with the GOP to roll back federal campaign finance laws.

The Senate GOP’s campaign arm, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which brought the Supreme Court case challenging a 1970s-era monetary cap on coordination with candidates, expects to now qualify for ad time as much as 13 times cheaper than it previously would have been. The NRSC moved to immediately end its traditional independent expenditures in the hours after the ruling, which, like a super PAC, cannot coordinate with candidates and purchases airtime at a more expensive rate. Instead, “all NRSC-funded voter contact will largely be executed as coordinated spending, developed directly with campaigns,” the group said in a memo.

“Coordinated buys qualify for Lowest Unit Charge (LUC) on broadcast and cable,” the NRSC concluded.

But that determination appears to be more uncertain than Republicans claim, at least for the moment. Democrats believe the solicitor general, who argued on behalf of the Trump administration before the Supreme Court to allow unlimited campaign coordination, undermined the GOP’s position by telling the justices that broadcasters must charge low rates for candidates “but not for party spending — whether coordinated or independent.” 

Covington and Burling, a Washington-based law firm specializing in business and government policy that was not involved in either litigation, also cited the solicitor general’s position as a reason for uncertainty.

“It is not yet clear how the broadcast industry will respond,” the firm concluded in an analysis of the Supreme Court ruling. “How this issue is ultimately resolved will have a significant impact on how today’s decision reshapes federal campaign spending.”

Four Democratic candidates are spearheading the legal challenge: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, and Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI), all of whom hold significant cash advantages over their opponents.