A Unanimous Supreme Court Backs the NRA Against a Thuggish Regulator
The Justices vote 9-0 that government can’t use their power to silence political opponents.
Thursday was a bad day for partisan political bullies at the Supreme Court. The Justices unanimously affirmed in NRA v. Vullo that government officials can’t wield their power to silence opponents.
The National Rifle Association alleged that New York state’s former Superintendent of the Department of Financial Services, Maria Vullo, coerced financial institutions that she regulated to stop doing business with it and other gun-rights groups. Ms. Vullo’s threats against insurers, the NRA argued, violated its First Amendment rights by punishing pro-gun advocacy. All of the Justices agreed that the NRA made a plausible argument, overturning the Second Circuit Court of Appeals’s dismissal of its suit. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes for the Court, its Bantam Books(1963) precedent “stands for the principle that a government official cannot directly or indirectly coerce a private party to punish or suppress disfavored speech on her behalf.”
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