Supreme Court unanimously sides with NRA in First Amendment dispute with New York official – Washington Times

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday for the National Rifle Association in a dispute over whether a New York state official had violated the groups First Amendment rights when she told companies to consider their reputations in doing business with the gun rights group.

The NRA brought the case against Maria Vullo, the former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, saying she pushed financial firms to deny the group services because of its gun rights advocacy.

In a unanimous ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the group plausibly argued that its rights were violated, reversing the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision to dismiss the lawsuit.

Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors, Justice Sotomayor wrote.

The decision sends the dispute back to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for reconsideration.

In the aftermath of the 2018 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Ms. Vullo said that financial services companies should consider whether they should serve pro-gun organizations like the NRA.

New York regulators opened investigations into certain insurance companies that were in business with NRA members. The NRA sued, saying Ms. Vullo was exercising government authority against its free speech rights.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Ms. Vullo, ruling she enjoyed qualified immunity and that her speech was lawful and protected as an exercise in law enforcement.

The NRA took the case to the Supreme Court.

Justice Sotomayor noted that Ms. Vullo struck a deal with an insurance company that had done business with the NRA that the firm would would instruct its syndicates to cease underwriting firearm-related policies and would scale back its NRA-related business.

In exchange, [the Department of Financial Services] would focus its forthcoming affinity-insurance enforcement action solely on those syndicates which served the NRA, and ignore other syndicates writing similar policies, the ruling noted.

It also highlighted the fact that Ms. Vullo praised businesses that severed ties with the NRA as fulfilling their corporate social responsibility.

Vullo was free to criticize the NRA and pursue the conceded violations of New York insurance law. She could not wield her power, however, to threaten enforcement actions against DFS-regulated entities in order to punish or suppress the NRAs gun-promotion advocacy, Justice Sotomayor wrote. Because the complaint plausibly alleges that Vullo did just that, the Court holds that the NRA stated a First Amendment violation.

Neal Katyal, counsel for Ms. Vullo, said they were disappointed in the ruling.

As the Courts decision makes clear, because of the posture of this case, this ruling required the Court to treat the NRAs untested allegations as true even though these allegations have no evidentiary merit, he said. This case will now go back to the Second Circuit, which threw out the lawsuit on qualified immunity grounds before. The Supreme Court did not address the qualified immunity decision of the Second Circuit, and we are confident Ms. Vullos claim of qualified immunity will be reaffirmed.

The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, praised the decision. The ACLU represented the NRA in the dispute, despite the two groups having many disagreements.

Todays decision confirms that government officials have no business using their regulatory authority to blacklist disfavored political groups, said David Cole, an attorney for the ACLU who argued the case. The New York state officials involved here, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his chief financial regulator, Maria Vullo, were clear that they sought to punish the NRA because they disagreed with its gun rights advocacy. The Supreme Court has now made crystal clear that this action is unconstitutional.

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Supreme Court unanimously sides with NRA in First Amendment dispute with New York official - Washington Times