March 18, 2024 – The New York Times reports that a "majority of the Supreme Court appeared on Monday to embrace arguments by the National Rifle Association that a New York State official violated the First Amendment" when she encouraged banks and insurance agencies to cut ties with the gun rights organization in 2018.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, NRA v. Maria T. Vullo, in November 2023 after the Second Circuit dismissed the NRA's claims against Vullo, the former head of the New York State Department of Financial Services.
“It was a campaign by the state’s highest political officials to use their power to coerce a boycott of a political advocacy organization because they disagreed with its advocacy,” said David D. Cole, the national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who argued on behalf of the NRA. He added that the officials’ actions had cost the group “millions of dollars.”
The Times reports that Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar described some of the NRA's claims as plausible in a friend-of-the-court brief, specifically that Vullo may have crossed a constitutional line "by coercing regulated entities to terminate their business relationships" with the NRA.
The Brewer firm has represented the NRA on this matter since its inception, advocating alongside First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh and the ACLU.