"Six decades ago, this Court held that a government entity’s 'threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means ofcoercion' against a third party 'to achieve the suppression' of disfavored speech violates the First Amendment...."

"Today, the Court reaffirms what it said then: Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors. Petitioner National Rifle Association (NRA) plausibly alleges that respondent Maria Vullo did just that. As superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, Vullo allegedly 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. Those allegations, if true, state a First Amendment claim."

Writes Justice Sonia Sotomayor for a unanimous Supreme Court, in National Rifle Association v. Maria Vullo, issued this morning.

Justice Gorsuch adds a very concise concurrence:

I write separately to explain my understanding of the Court’s opinion, which I join in full. Today we reaffirm a well-settled principle: “A government official cannot coerce a private party to punish or suppress disfavored speech on her behalf.” As the Court mentions, many lower courts have taken to analyzing this kind of coercion claim under a four-pronged “multifactor test.” These tests, the Court explains, might serve “as a useful, though nonexhaustive, guide.” But sometimes they might not.... Indeed, the Second Circuit’s decision to break up its analysis into discrete parts and “tak[e] the [complaint’s] allegations in isolation” appears only to have contributed to its mistaken conclusion that the National Rifle Association failed to state a claim. Lower courts would therefore do well to heed this Court’s directive: Whatever value these “guideposts” serve, they remain “just” that and nothing more. “Ultimately, the critical” question is whether the plaintiff has “plausibly allege[d] conduct that, viewed in context, could be reasonably understood to convey a threat of adverse government action in order to punish or suppress the plaintiff ’s speech.”