The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), typically a fierce adversary of the National Rifle Association (NRA), will defend the latter before the U.S. Supreme Court in a free speech case against the New York Department of Financial Services.
“We’re representing the NRA at the Supreme Court in their case against New York’s Department of Financial Services for abusing its regulatory power to violate the NRA’s First Amendment rights,” the ACLU stated Saturday on X. “The government can’t blacklist an advocacy group because of its viewpoint.”
David Cole, the ACLU’s national legal director, clarified that the organization does not “support the NRA’s mission or its viewpoints on gun rights, and we don’t agree with their goals, strategies, or tactics”. “But we both know that government officials can’t punish organizations because they disapprove of their views,” the ACLU continued.
The NRA filed a complaint against a former New York regulator in November, claiming she violated their right to free expression by deterring banks and insurers from doing business with them. According to court documents, Maria Vullo, the former head of the New York State Department of Financial Services, pressed banks and insurers to examine the “reputational risks” of working with the NRA in the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida, high school massacre in 2018.
The NRA then sued Vullo and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, claiming that the group’s First Amendment rights had been violated by authorities’ “blacklisting” of it, resulting in “tens of millions of dollars in damages.” The Supreme Court said in November that it will consider the case.
However, the ACLU’s New York chapter is protesting the group’s choice to defend the historically opposed organization. Longtime executive director of the NYCLU Donna Lieberman made it clear in an interview with Gothamist that her group is against the ACLU defending the NRA.
“We believe in defending the free speech rights of people we disagree with, even people we abhor, but there’s no need here for the ACLU to jump in to stand up in court as the lawyers for the NRA,” she said.
“The ACLU doesn’t have to prove its First Amendment bona fides by standing up with the NRA that we all hate, that’s antithetical to everything we stand for,” she said. “The ACLU could have filed an amicus brief, it could have spoken in the media about the First Amendment rights at issue here. But no, they’re going to represent them as counsel. And that — to me, to the NYCLU — is wrong.”
