The Federal Elections Commission last week quietly dropped an advisory opinion allowing all candidates for federal office to raise unlimited sums for issue-advocacy groups pushing for ballot measures, an under-the-radar rule change that the New York Times hints is a serious force multiplier for President Biden in Arizona, Florida, and Nevada where state constitutional abortion rights referenda are expected to be sharing the ballot with him in November.

If the change seems abstract to non-campaign finance geeks, meaning everyone – even your median political news junkie knows approximately jack shit about the FEC’s vast bailiwick – let the NRSC’s protestations tell the story. “The risk of corruption inherent in direct foreign national contributions to candidates would simply metastasize to the ballot initiative context, with the same deleterious effect,” their lawyers wrote in a memo to the FEC before the opinion dropped. Always a good sign when the GOP alleges foreign cash could erode the integrity of American elections.

The Times report characterizes the timing of the opinion coinciding with the decapitation of RNC chief counsel Charlie Spies as interesting but they have no idea if there’s a connection. Trump Reichsminister of politics Chris LaCivita insisted the rule change was good for the Orange Fuhrer’s campaign in some secret way, telling the Times that they “will engage in all opportunities available, including new ones to defeat the corruption and failure of the Democrat machine.”