| Badger52 |
11-03-2023 18:02 |
A couple of recent SCOTUS things
They granted cert to hear the Garland v. Cargill bumpstock petition.
There's also an amicus brief from the NRA added to their current petition to be heard by SCOTUS, over NY Dept of Fin Services coercing people not to do business with the NRA, as a 1st Amendment issue. (Think entities continuing on with the great idea of Opn CHOKE POINT.) They're granting only as to the first petition question. Here's the intro to the petition:
Quote:
QUESTIONS PRESENTED
Bantam Books v. Sullivan held that a state com-
mission with no formal regulatory power violated the
First Amendment when it “deliberately set out to
achieve the suppression of publications” through “in-
formal sanctions,” including the “threat of invoking le-
gal sanctions and other means of coercion, persuasion,
and intimidation.” 372 U.S. 58, 66-67 (1963). Respond-
ent here, wielding enormous regulatory power as the
head of New York’s Department of Financial Services
(“DFS”), applied similar pressure tactics—including
backchannel threats, ominous guidance letters, and se-
lective enforcement of regulatory infractions—to in-
duce banks and insurance companies to avoid doing
business with Petitioner, a gun rights advocacy group.
App. 199-200 ¶ 21. Respondent targeted Petitioner
explicitly based on its Second Amendment advocacy,
which DFS’s official regulatory guidance deemed a
“reputational risk” to any financial institution serving
the NRA. Id. at 199, n.16. The Second Circuit held such
conduct permissible as a matter of law, reasoning that
“this age of enhanced corporate social responsibility”
justifies regulatory concern about “general backlash”
against a customer’s political speech. Id. at 29-30. Ac-
cordingly, the questions presented are:
1. Does the First Amendment allow a govern-
ment regulator to threaten regulated entities with
adverse regulatory actions if they do business with a
controversial speaker, as a consequence of (a) the
government’s own hostility to the speaker’s viewpoint
or (b) a perceived “general backlash” against the
speaker’s advocacy?
2. Does such coercion violate a clearly estab-
lished First Amendment right?
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Now go eat your peas. :munchin |
