We were certainly hoping the decision would be in favor of the NRA and more importantly, our right to Freedom of Speech. But I believe NO ONE was excepting the SCOTUS decision to be UNANIMOUS!

To recap, as I wrote here last December, this was a case involving Maria Vullo’s efforts to coerce businesses, specifically insurance agencies, to NOT do business with the NRA or they’d face fines or sanctions. Vullo way overstepped in this case, which led to even the ACLU writing a brief in support of the NRA. 

There was hope that SCOTUS would rule in favor of the NRA, but again, no one was quite certain as to what the outcome would be.

Yet, here we are with a victory for the First Amendment. 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday revived the National Rifle Association’s lawsuit accusing a New York state official of coercing banks and insurers to avoid doing business with the gun rights group in a ruling that warned public officials against wielding their power to punish speech they dislike.

The justices, in a 9-0 decision authored by liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor, threw out a lower court’s ruling that had dismissed the NRA’s 2018 lawsuit against Maria Vullo, a former superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services.

Yes, that was another very wild part of this. Justice Sonia Sotomayor is incredibly liberal. Yet she is the one who wrote the decision, which you can read in full, here. 

Via Ed Morrissey at HotAir, what Sotomayor writes is huge for the NRA, but it is even bigger when it comes to our First Amendment right to freedom of speech. 

Six decades ago, this Court held that a government entity’s “threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion” against a third party “to achieve the suppression” of disfavored speech violates the First Amendment. Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 67 (1963). Today, the Court reaffirms what it said then: Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors. Petitioner National Rifle Association (NRA) plausibly alleges that respondent Maria Vullo did just that. As superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, Vullo allegedly pressured 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. Those allegations, if true, state a First Amendment claim.

And she writes in the decision:

Held: The NRA plausibly alleged that respondent violated the First Amendment by coercing regulated entities to terminate their business relationships with the NRA in order to punish or suppress gun-promotion advocacy. Pp. 8–20.
(a) 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. When government officials are “engaging in their own expressive conduct,” though, “the Free Speech Clause has no application.” Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U. S. 460, 467. “When a government entity embarks on a course of action, it necessarily takes a particular viewpoint and rejects others,” and thus does not need to “maintain viewpoint-neutrality when its officers and employees speak about that venture.” Matal v. Tam, 582 U. S. 218, 234. While a government official can share her views freely and criticize particular beliefs in the hopes of persuading others, she may not use the power of her office to punish or suppress disfavored expression.

That’s huge. Vullo can be anti-Second Amendment all she wants. But she CANNOT use the power of her office, to punish or dictate what speech is good and what speech isn’t. But that’s what she tried to do. And now, the United States Supreme Court has informed her and everyone that our freedom of speech must be protected even if government officials disagree with it. 

From the opinion:
"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."https://t.co/pC7Ja9M6ei

— Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal) May 30, 2024

What’s interesting about this decision is that it comes at a time when the Democrats are gnashing their teeth and trying to coerce the DOJ into getting Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito kicked off the court for imaginary infractions, such as hoisting a very dangerous flag up outside their home. Jamie Raskin even wrote an op-ed about this. 

The U.S. Department of Justice — including the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed U.S. special counsel and the solicitor general, all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr. Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims — can petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law.

It’s an ‘we don’t like what you do and how you rule, plus we don’t like your spouses having the right to do or say things we don’t like’ gambit. Essentially the Democrats want a Supreme Court that rules according to their say so. Which is, in my opinion, an infringement on free speech. 

The Govt using private businesses to due their bidding is the definition of Fascism.

— Beru164 (@BTT1964) May 30, 2024

So I’m sure the Democrats are NOT happy with this ruling.

Notice the court only needs reforming since it went right leaning?
Decades of left leaning Supreme Court and not a peep about stacking or recusals.

— Robert Franklin (@RobertF17298051) May 30, 2024

Will they call for Sotomayor’s recusal next? That’s their rules you know. Do you think they’ll abide by it? I doubt it. 

Feature Photo Credit: Constitution Flag Gavel via iStock, cropped and modified