Former President Donald Trump’s conviction by a Manhattan jury two Thursdays ago so overwhelmed the news cycle that there was inadequate time for a proper analysis of the Supreme Court’s decision in NRA v. Vullo, which was handed down the same day.
The unanimous court in Vullo held that the National Rifle Association (NRA) had sufficiently alleged a First Amendment claim against the New York superintendent of financial services. While the vindication of free speech rights is the top-line takeaway from Thursday’s 9-0 decision, there is much more to glean from the 20-page opinion and two concurrences. Here are five key points.
1. The Decision Focused Solely on Government Coercion
The Supreme Court in Vullo held that the NRA had properly stated a First Amendment claim against Maria Vullo, the former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS). To reach that conclusion, the high court applied a “coercion” standard based on its precedent in Bantam Books.
In Bantam Books, the Rhode Island Commission to Encourage Morality in Youth distributed to a wholesaler a list of books published by Bantam Books that it judged “objectionable for sale, distribution or display to youths under 18 years of age.” The commission also provided the list to the local police force, which later visited the wholesaler to ask whether the books were being distributed in the state. The Supreme Court in Bantam Books held the commission violated the publisher’s First Amendment rights by “deliberately set[ting] about to achieve the suppression of
