CV NEWS FEED // The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously decided in favor of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in a case against former New York State Department of Financial Services Superintendent Maria T. Vullo.
The high court found in its May 30 decision written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor that “the NRA plausibly alleged that 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.”
The NRA alleged that Vullo had threatened and applied pressure on banks and insurance companies to cease doing business with them in wake of the Parkland High School shooting in 2018.
The shooting resulted in the death of 17 students and faculty, leading to significant backlash against the NRA and other gun advocacy groups.
The decision remanded the case back to the circuit court for further proceedings, vacating the 2nd Circuit’s prior 2022 judgment, which had dismissed the NRA’s claims.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President of Corporate Engagement Jeremy Tedesco released a statement following the decision, which he described as a “big win for every American.”
“American democracy operates best when all viewpoints are respected and allowed to exist in the marketplace of ideas,” Tedesco wrote:
The First Amendment protects Americans from government censorship and punishment for disfavored views, and the decision rightly affirms government officials can’t engage in censorship-by-proxy schemes like the pressure New York placed on banks and insurance companies to deny the NRA service for their constitutionally protected expression.
ADF attorneys submitted a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Heartbeat International, in which it urged the Supreme Court to rule in NRA’s favor.
