With all the hubbub over the Trump-related cases headed to the Supreme Court this term, many people overlooked the arguments that took place last week in two cases filed by a tech industry group against laws that were designed to protect people from online censorship.
The cases — called NetChoice v. Moody (the Florida case) and NetChoice v. Paxton (the Texas one) — involve similar statutes enacted by the overwhelmingly Republican legislatures of Florida and Texas and signed into law by two Republican governors. The Texas law is much narrower than the Florida law. That likely played a role in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals’ opinion upholding it, while the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Florida law.
But that distinction went missing in the nearly 90-minute argument that occurred at the Supreme Court last week. Instead, NetChoice attorney Paul Clement seemed to have the justices convinced that Texas was infringing on tech companies’ First Amendment right to exercise editorial judgment when they decide what content to allow on their platforms.
Clement deserves credit. He is the finest Supreme Court advocate of his generation. And his argument in the NetChoice cases — he argued both — bore all the hallmarks of his advocacy, including a dry sense of humor and a deep personal familiarity with the justices that allowed him to skate with arguments that others would never get away with, such as when he said the only thing the tech companies want to eliminate from their
