Supreme Court Rebukes New York Officials Over Targeting of NRA

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court delivered a significant blow to New York State’s ongoing and unlawful harassment of the National Rifle Association. This controversy began in 2017, when New York’s Department of Financial Services, under the direction of Superintendent Maria Vullo, took issue with the NRA’s endorsement of an insurance provider named Carry Guard. While most companies currently offering “insurance” for use-of-force situations are careful about how exactly their services interact with state laws against insuring intentional criminal acts, Carry Guard was not. Consequently, the company violated New York law by offering its services in the state. It is also not disputed in this case that NRA violated New York law by promoting Carry Guard without a state insurance producer license. However, what transpired next, according to the NRA’s complaint, put the Department of Financial Services well past the pale of constitutional restraints on government action.

As alleged by the NRA in its lawsuit, in investigating and pursuing the violations with the NRA’s own insurers, Superintendent Vullo offered a thinly veiled quid pro quo: cut off the NRA, as well as any other pro-gun groups from your services, and we’ll cut you a break on any violations you may have committed, whether related to the NRA or otherwise. The inverse was left unspoken, but obviously implied: refuse to cooperate, and we’ll have to do this the hard way. Subsequent letters and press conferences by the State government drove the point home. The State and the DFS made no bones about their desire to target pro-gun advocacy by pressuring their financial service providers.

In its unanimous opinion authored by Justice Sotomayor, the Supreme Court held this alleged conduct to be blatantly unconstitutional. “Government officials,” Sotomayor wrote, “cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.” The allegations made by the NRA, if true, showed that Vullo “pressured regulated entities to help her stifle the NRA’s pro-gun advocacy by threatening enforcement actions against those entities that refused to disassociate from the NRA and other gun-promotion advocacy groups,” going far beyond the pursuit of any legitimate government law enforcement purpose or the mere expression of the government’s own opinion.

While the lawsuit is, after years of appeals at the motion-to-dismiss stage, still in the early phase of litigation and will continue to be fought in the lower courts, this ruling is a significant step in the right direction for defending the rights of pro-gun organizations and individuals targeted by unscrupulous politicians.