
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled Thursday in favor of the National Rifle Association (NRA) in its free speech fight against regulatory overreach in New York. The decision found that former New York Department of Financial Services head Maria Vullo violated the First Amendment when she urged banks and insurance companies she regulated to stop doing business with the gun rights group.
The NRA argued that Vullo’s actions went beyond permissible advocacy and amounted to unconstitutional government coercion. The Court held that Vullo had plausibly violated the NRA’s First Amendment rights by attempting to coerce regulated entities into terminating business relationships with the group to punish or suppress gun-promotion advocacy.
In the opinion authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Court stated that while Vullo was free to criticize the NRA and pursue conceded violations of New York insurance law, she could not wield her power to threaten enforcement actions against regulated entities in order to punish or suppress the NRA’s gun-promotion advocacy.
Sotomayor wrote, “In sum, the complaint, assessed as a whole, plausibly alleges that Vullo threatened to wield her power against those refusing to aid her campaign to punish the NRA’s gun-promotion advocacy. If true, that violates the First Amendment.”
The unanimous opinion reverses a lower-court decision that had dismissed the NRA’s lawsuit against Vullo. However, Sotomayor noted that the ruling does not shield the NRA and other advocacy groups from regulation.