April 6, 2023 — Law360 reports that Montana and 17 other states are "lining up behind the National Rifle Association at the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to take up the gun group's appeal arguing that a probe into NRA-affiliated insurers and statements from a former New York official about the reputational harm of associating with the group violated its constitutional rights."
The report states that the attorneys general filed an amicus brief on April 4, which asks the court to correct a Second Circuit decision they say "departed from [the Supreme Court's] clear instruction and gave state officials license to target and crackdown on their political opponents' protected speech."
The NRA, which is represented by Brewer, Attorneys & Counselors, filed suit in 2018 against former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) and then-DFS Superintendent Maria Vullo. The NRA contends the parties took aim at the NRA and conspired to use DFS's regulatory power to financially blacklist the NRA – coercing banks and insurers to cut ties with the Association, in order to suppress its pro-Second Amendment speech.
The NRA's First Amendment claims withstood multiple motions to dismiss. But in 2022, after Vullo appealed the trial court's ruling on qualified immunity, the Second Circuit struck down the NRA's claims.
As Law360 reports, in its amicus brief, the states said, "The Second Circuit's decision gives government officials license to financially cripple their political opponents, or otherwise stifle their protected speech — whether those rivals advocate for school choice, abortion rights, religious liberty, environmental protections, or any other politically salient issue."
The NRA is represented by William A. Brewer III, Sarah B. Rogers and Noah Peters of Brewer Attorneys & Counselors and Eugene Volokh.
Read the full report here.
Read the amicus brief here.