The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that the lawsuit filed by the NRA against Marie Vullo, the then-head of New York’s Department of Financial Services, can go forward as Vullo’s threat to go after the NRA over gun advocacy was a violation of the NRA’s First Amendment Rights.
Sonya Sotomayor wrote the unanimous decision, saying, of Vullo’s actions “What she could not do, however, was use her power as the head of the Department of Financial Services to ‘threaten enforcement actions’ against entities that the department regulated “to punish or suppress the NRA’s gun-promotion advocacy.”
Excerpt from scotusblog.com
The Supreme Court on Thursday reinstated a lawsuit by the National Rifle Association, alleging that a New York official violated the group’s First Amendment rights when she urged banks and insurance companies not to do business with it in the wake of the 2018 shooting at a Florida high school.
In a unanimous decision by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the justices agreed that the NRA had made out a case that Maria Vullo, then the head of New York’s Department of Financial Services, had gone too far in her efforts to get companies and banks to cut ties with the NRA, crossing over the line from efforts to persuade the companies and banks – which would be permitted – to attempts to coerce them, which are not.
The Supreme Court also indicated, however, that when the case returned to the court of appeals, the lower court could consider whether Vullo is entitled to qualified immunity – which could prove to be a high bar for the NRA to surmount…
In a 20-page decision issued 10 weeks after the oral argument, the Supreme Court unanimously reinstated the NRA’s claim against Vullo.
