General Discussion

Now granted, it was against a Democratic government official, but just last year the Supreme Court ruled in National Rifle Association v. Vullo that government officials cannot use coercive tactics to suppress disfavored speech, stressing that government officials cannot achieve indirect censorship by threatening private companies (like ABC) to punish certain viewpoints (like Kimmel’s). It was a unanimous ruling that stated if Maria T. Vullo, the former director of the New York State Department of Financial Services, attempted to coerce financial institutions in the state to refrain from doing business with the National Rifle Association, then such conduct would violate the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.