Why The Supreme Court Is Protecting Anonymous Giving

At first toy submission is clear. We exist to encourage and equip women and men to make informed pregnancy decisions.

I never thought that serving women in need

would put me in the crosshairs of my own state's attorney general. And yet here we are. The US Supreme Court ruled this week on first choice women's resource centers versus Platkin, a significant case that involved a state attorney general

partnering with planned Parenthood against pro-life pregnancy centers. Among the actions of the AG were attacks on donor privacy. Did you have complaints that formed the basis

“of your concern about the fundraising activities here?”

We certainly had complaints about crisis pregnancy centers that didn't happen. No, not this crisis pregnancy center. So I think we've been clear from the outset that we haven't had complaints about this specific.

So you had no basis to think that they were deceiving any of their contributed. In this episode, we speak to a lion's defending freedoms Aaron Hawley who argued the case before the court to break down what happens next.

I've daily wire executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Halm. This is a legal wire addition of pointy wire. Have you ever interviewed someone who's eager to work and excited to learn all about a job?

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Four out of five employers who post on Zippercrooter and get a quality candidate within the first day. Try it for free at zippercrooter.com/wire. Meet your match on Zippercrooter. The state of Colorado is added again,

trying to silence free speech. A long Colorado forces businesses to use customers preferred pronouns, even if they're biologically inaccurate. And even if using those incorrect pronouns

would violate a person's religious beliefs or conscience. That's a violation of free speech. But as Colorado has proven time it again, it has little concern for the first amendment. Alliance of Fending Freedom is challenging the law

on behalf of a Christian bookstore and a Colorado-based sports apparel company. But a court recently ruled against them. With ADF's help, they appeal the ruling and they'll continue firing to ensure Colorado

doesn't get away with this next attempt to skirt the first amendment. Your gift helps protect free speech in cases like this all over the country. And for a limited time, your first gift to ADF is doubled

by a special matching grant, Wild Funds Last. Text wire, WIR to 83848, or go to join ADF.com/wire to have your gift doubled. Joining us now to discuss the Supreme Court's latest decision for pro-life advocates is Aaron Holly

Alliance Defending Freedom of Council. Aaron, thanks for joining us. - Thanks so much for having me so glad to be here. - So first, you personally argued this case. So congratulations on the big win.

First, top line, what do we need to know about this case going into this? - Sure, so I think the top line is that hostile state officials cannot harass ideological opponents.

And since the impedance demanding their donor names unless they want to end up in federal court, which is a really good ruling for non-profits of all varieties, but especially the pregnancy care centers in this case.

- Now, the ruling was unanimous. Correct, I mean, this is a pretty big deal that we had agreement between the left and right on this case. - That's exactly right.

And sometimes unanimous opinions are sort of milk toast opinions. You don't really get a lot out of them.

“Because you have to get all of the justices to agree.”

But one of the amazing things about this opinion

is that although it is unanimous, it is also a robust defense of the first amendment. It says in no uncertain terms that what the New Jersey Attorney General did here chilled first-choices association rights.

It may donors less likely to give it inhibited that relationship. And that's something the Attorney General can't do without a really good reason. And he certainly can't avoid federal court

if he does something like this. - For those who haven't tracked this case, what exactly did the New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Plattkin do in this case? - Sure, so it's sort of a parade of horrible.

One of the very first things that the Attorney General did when he took offense was establish something that he called the reproductive rights task force. And he used this task force to go after pregnancy

care centers. He issued a consumer alert against them because of all things. These pregnancy care centers don't perform abortions. No heaven haven't prepared.

So the Attorney General used that to go after them. He actually worked shop that consumer alert to plan parenthood and accepted their edits,

- Incredible. So plan parenthood a partner in this, this as you characterize it, and harassment campaign really.

And first choice in the end wins the argument.

“What were the key legal complaints you helped argue?”

Why did those win the day? - Sure, so this is sort of a naughty procedural case. In the question this Supreme Court was deciding was ultimately whether first choice was entitled to be in federal court at all.

So after issuing this consumer alert, after harassing pregnancy care centers, the Attorney General also issued a subpoena demanding donor names, addresses, and their places of employment.

So a really broad invasive subpoena. And that sort of information the court has held is protected by the first amendment. But what Matthew Plutton said is that no, you don't get to get into federal court

when I give you a subpoena. You have to go to state court first. And this gets really wonky,

but the catch, if you go to state court first,

then you'll almost certainly not be able to ever get into federal court because of something called preclusion. So even Justice Jackson at oral argument was really struck by this.

And accused the New Jersey Attorney General of making sure that first choice couldn't get into federal court. So the narrow issue was, does this kill first amendment rights do they get into federal court?

And the Supreme Court was both adamant and unanimous on that point. - And this made this a particularly complex case. And this is a state court versus Supreme Court, power of the authority of an attorney general

versus private entities. What was, you described it as sort of naughty, complex, complicated. What was difficult about the argument? - So I think the difficult thing

was just sort of cutting through all of the procedure. But the ones you got to sort of the precedence of the Supreme Court had already held, I we think it's an easy case.

“So there's two things that were really important.”

So the civil rights Congress enacted something called Section 1983. And Section 1983 is a federal statute that allows individuals whose constitutional rights have been infringed by any state official

to sue in federal court. And so the lower court in this case in the Attorney General were really arguing for an exception to that general rule. If your constitutional rights are violated,

you get to get into federal court. Here they said that's not true.

You have to go to state court first.

So that we thought was the first error. And the second error was this real effort to circumscribe the first amendment. The Attorney General argued here that ordinary people wouldn't find a subpoena to be chilling.

And that's just absurd. (laughs) As the Supreme Court pointed out, the subpoena twice on its face threatens first choice with contempt. The Attorney General, there was something over 20 briefs filed

in five different courts in this case. The Attorney General used every resource, every effort to go after first choice as donors. There's no question they were chilled and that's what the court found.

- Yeah, and I wanted to talk specifically about the donor privacy aspect. There's a few layers here. Harassment of pregnancy centers sort of writ large. We've seen this a lot from a lot of different angles.

Then there's this donor privacy concerned. Do you think this ruling helps really protect donor privacy in a way that's robust? - Absolutely. The Supreme Court traces the history

of donor privacy protections all the way back to the NAACP case in which Alabama demanded an efforts contrary to integration that the NAACP turn over their donor names and membership names in that case.

So the court traces that history and then they say in no uncertain terms which they have a quite business explicit before. But they said where you have a donor disclosure demand, that is inherently chilling.

And that's a big deal because that means that they hostile state official request to your memberless ship lists. If you request your donor names, then you get to challenge that in federal court.

- For just sort of the average American out there. What, how does this potentially impact their life

“or some things that they're concerned about going forward?”

- Sure, so this ruling we think directly impacts really any American that's ever wanted to donate to a cause or support an organization, perhaps one with an unpopular viewpoint. In those instances, if you're living in a state

that disagrees with your view, the attorney general can send that organization as the Pena and they can demand your name if you remember. They can demand your contact information. In this case, the attorney general demanded not only names,

phone numbers, but as well places of employment.

to call up those donors and quiz them

about their donation to first choice.

“You know, what can we just possibly be more chilling?”

But after this ruling, those donors are protected, the organizations can go into federal court. - So clearly, huge implications, then. So where does this case go from here? - Sure, so this case isn't over.

The Supreme Court's question, as it says, was somewhat narrow, it was only deciding whether first choice gets to get into federal court. But there are several indications that hopefully the lower courts will pay attention to you.

One of those is the court's unanimous conclusion that first choice's first amendment rights were burdened. The court clearly says that.

Now for donor disclosure under the first amendment,

sometimes, if you think about the election context, sometimes disclosure is allowed by the first amendment.

“But only if that disclosure meets something”

called exacting scrutiny. So the state has to have a really good reason to get that information. Here, we don't think that exists. In fact, there's a fantastic paragraph in the opinion,

was sort of mocks the attorney general's rationale for wanting these donor names. He says that he wants to talk to them because he's where they might be misled and having thought they gave to a abortion center,

rather than a pregnancy center. But he cite the link in which they give, which has pictures of smiling babies and families, that there's no question that any first choice donor thought they were giving to anything other

than a pregnancy care center. - Indeed, are there any other pro-life related cases

“on the docked now that we should have on our radar?”

- To be seen by the high court or maybe on the state level that are significant. This is obviously a big win for the pro-life side. Do we have any other cases we should be watching? - Sure, sure, there are a couple.

I would put your listeners to Louisiana and to the fifth circuit. We are awaiting a decision, ADF represents Louisiana, co-council with them, and are awaiting a decision from the fifth circuit on our request to stay. The 2023 runs that the Biden administration

took away that last protection, that last remaining in-person visit,

which provides crucial health safeguards for women.

Without that visit, we don't know if they might have an autopopregnancy or be further along in gestation that they might have thoughts. Two different panels of the fifth circuit have already found that removal to be unlawful.

We're hoping that the circuit does that again soon. - Certainly, a case we should be watching. Now, before you go, there was another big decision that came down this week from the Supreme Court in Louisiana. That had to do with the hot topic of redrawing congressional districts.

This was a six-three decision. But can you tell us any more about what this means in terms of how it affects other situations like in Virginia and potentially Florida? - Sure, so in the Louisiana case in particular,

the question was a congressional map drawn in 2022. And the state had drawn that map in response to a federal court order, so had expressly relied on race, sort of done a racial gerrymander because the state was required to do so by a federal court order.

The Supreme Court held that violated the 14th amendment that you can't, in fact, expressly consider race when drawing these sort of districts. And you could have a major impact on the other cases. And I think it's a good extension

of the Supreme Court's sort of principles that we want elections as much as a way we want anything else to be based on neutral principles. - Well, another big week for the Supreme Court, which continues to really reshape the legal landscape

in major ways. Aaron, thank you so much for coming on. - Thanks for having me appreciate it. - That was Alliance Defending Freedom's Aaron Holly, and this has been a legal wire edition of Morning Wire.