The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously backed the National Rifle Association in a First Amendment ruling that could make it harder for state regulators to pressure advocacy groups.
The decision means the NRA may continue to pursue its lawsuit against a New York official who urged banks and insurance companies to cut ties with the gun rights group following the 2018 mass shooting at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 people dead.
“Ultimately, the critical takeaway is that the First Amendment prohibits government officials from wielding their power selectively to punish or suppress speech, directly or (as alleged here) through private intermediaries,” the opinion by Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.
The NRA claimed that Maria Vullo, the former superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, not only leaned on insurance companies to part ways with the gun lobby but threatened enforcement actions against those firms if they failed to comply.
At the center of the dispute was a meeting Vullo had with insurance market Lloyd’s of London in 2018 in which the NRA claims she offered to not prosecute other violations as long as the company helped with the campaign against gun groups. Vullo tried to wave off the significance of the meeting, arguing in part that the NRA’s allegations of what took place were not specific.
Vullo, who served in Democratic former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration, said her enforcement targeted an insurance product that is illegal in New York: third-party policies sold through the NRA that cover personal injury and criminal defense costs following the use of a firearm. Critics dubbed the policies “murder insurance.”
The decision will provide some clarity to government regulators — both liberal and conservative — about how far they may go to pressure private companies that do business with controversial advocacy groups.
While the NRA is more likely to be at the Supreme Court making Second Amendment arguments, it picked up unfamiliar allies with its First Amendment claim. The American Civil Liberties Union, which usually sits opposite the NRA in the debate over guns, agreed to represent the group before the Supreme Court.
A US district court denied some of the NRA’s claims but allowed its First Amendment arguments to proceed against Vullo. The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision, concluding that Vullo’s actions were not coercive. It also ruled that Vullo was entitled to qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that shields government officials from lawsuits in some circumstances.
The NRA largely relied on a 1963 Supreme Court decision, Bantam Books v. Sullivan, that dealt with a Rhode Island commission that had threatened to refer distributors to police if they sold books deemed to be obscene. The Supreme Court held that such “informal censorship” was unconstitutional.
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