Paul Blumenthal reports for HuffPo:

Congressional Republicans are trying yet again to use the appropriations process to roll back campaign finance regulations. This time the target is the limit on coordinated spending between candidates and political parties — that is, money that a party spends to support a candidate in consultation with that candidate.

A rider to the Senate’s Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill would eliminate the limits on coordination between candidates and political parties. This move to further gut campaign finance laws comes months after Republicans and Senate Democrats inserted a rider to the omnibus budget legislation passed in December to significantly raise the ceiling on contributions to national political parties. Thus far, only Republicans have taken advantage of those new, more generous limits.

On Thursday, Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) attempted to strip the coordination rider in committee, but the effort failed on a 16-14 party-line vote, with all Republicans opposed to removing the rider.