The U.S. Supreme Court has revived a claim by the National Rifle Association (NRA) that a former New York regulator allegedly violated the organization’s First Amendment rights by coercing insurers and banks to terminate their business relationships with the NRA in order to punish or suppress the NRA’s gun rights advocacy.
“Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors,” the court declared in a unanimous opinion written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
The Supreme Court found the NRA’s allegations that former New York Department of Financial Services Superintendent Maria T. Vullo violated its First Amendment rights to be plausible. The high court vacated a 2022 judgment of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that dismissed the