Supreme Court sides with NRA in New York First Amendment case
May 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court Thursday unanimously ruled for the National Rifle Association in a First Amendment dispute with the New York Department of Financial Services.
The decision allows an NRA lawsuit to move forward in state court with First Amendment claims against the agency and its former superintendent Maria Vullo.
The Supreme Court decision held that when a government entity invokes legal sanctions and other means of coercion to "achieve the suppression" of disfavored speech it violates the First Amendment.
"Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the Supreme Court opinion.
Sotomayor wrote that Vullo, then superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, did that by "allegedly pressuring regulated entities to help her stifle the NRA's pro-gun advocacy by threatening enforcement actions against those entities that refused to disassociate from the NRA and other gun-promotion advocacy groups. "
According to the Supreme Court filing in the case, the NYDFS oversees insurance companies. When a gun-control advocacy group filed a complaint against an NRA affinity insurance product called Carry Guard it ultimately led to the state agency violating the First Amendment through government coercion of private parties to punish the NRA's free speech.
The court filing said the NYDFS started an investigation into the NRA in 2017.
At Vullo's direction after the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in 2017, insurers and banks regulated by the NYDFS were encouraged to disassociate from the NRA.
The NRA sued over those actions.
Even though the American Civil Liberties Union clashes with the NRA over the Second Amendment, the ACLU represented the NRA before the Supreme Court in this First Amendment case.
According to the Supreme Court, a New York district court denied a motion to dismiss the NRA's First Amendment claims, holding in part that the NYDFS actions "could be interpreted as a veiled threat to regulated industries to disassociate with the NRA or risk DFS enforcement action."
A federal appeals court -- the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals -- reversed the district court decision. That court concluded that the state agency actions "constituted permissible government speech and legitimate law enforcement, and not unconstitutional coercion."
"At the heart of the First Amendment's Free Speech Clause is the recognition that viewpoint discrimination is uniquely harmful to a free and democratic society. The Clause prohibits government entities and actors from "abridging the freedom of speech," Sotomayor wrote.
She said the Supreme Court ruling in this case doesn't give advocacy groups immunity from government regulation or investigation nor does it prevent government officials from using free speech to condemn views they disagree with.
But Sotomayor wrote that Vullo "allegedly used the power of her office to target gun promotion by going after the NRA's business partners" with insurers following suit, "fearing regulatory hostility."
The U.S. Supreme Court vacated the appeals court ruling, holding that the NRA plausibly alleged that NYDFS superintendent Vullo "violated the First Amendment by coercing DFS-regulated entities to terminate their business relationships with the NRA in order to punish or suppress the NRA's advocacy."
