On Wednesday, the Supreme Court sided 9-0 with a pregnancy resource center being targeted by Democrat Attorney General Matthew Platkin of New Jersey. In 2022, Platkin issued a subpoena demanding First Choice Women’s Resource Centers turn over documents detailing the names, phone numbers, addresses, and places of employment of many of its donors.
First Choice filed a federal lawsuit, arguing the the demand for donor information violated its First Amendment rights. The suit went all the way to the Supreme Court.
While the justices were only tasked with determining if the case had standing to move forward, they unanimously agreed that it did, and that the Attorney General’s subpoena violated the center’s first amendment rights by potentially deterring donors from associating with them.
From the decision (citations excluded):
“The First Amendment guarantees all Americans the rights to speak, worship, publish, assemble, and petition their government freely. Each of these rights, this Court has long understood, necessarily carries with it a corresponding right to associate with others.”
The court goes on to note that they have faced numerous cases of state authorities demanding private donor information, going back to NAACP v. Alabama in 1958.
“And in one case after another, we have subjected those demands to heightened First Amendment scrutiny. Throughout, we have emphasized the critical role privacy in association plays in preserving political and cultural diversity and in shielding dissident expression from suppression.”
Only five years ago, Americans for Prosperity was subjected to a similar demand from Attorney General Rob Bonta of California. There again, the Supreme Court sided with AFP and the privacy of their donors over left-wing attacks on the First Amendment. The Court held unanimously that AFP did not have to turn over any information about its donors.
At American Experiment, we are well aware of the legal attacks that radical Democrats have launched against our friends in the conservative movement. Despite knowing their actions are unconstitutional, the left continues to launch this lawfare, hoping it will make us weaker. We want to make our position clear: we will never be bullied into compromising the identities of our donors, members, or associates. Attacks like these only go to show that our mission, to achieve a freer and more prosperous America, is more important now than ever. And we, and our donors, can rest secure in the fact that the federal courts will unanimously uphold our right to donor confidentiality. That is something our donors never need to worry about.
Thank you to every American Experiment member for your trust and support.
