Americans “overwhelmingly rejected the ideological takeover of political and civic life by narrow-minded identity politics” in the Nov. 5 election, a coalition of 38 financial officers wrote in letters warning companies that the new administration will “hasten the demise of DEI.”

“You stand at an important crossroads,” the letter states. “Either you can heed the voice of the American people—your shareholders, customers, and employees—or you can bow to fringe activists who demand that you double down on a failing ideology.”

Companies scored on the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Viewpoint Diversity index, along with Fortune 1000 companies not scored, received letters from the investor advisor coalition.

ADF’s 2024 Viewpoint Diversity index revealed that 91 percent of companies scored use critical race theory in their training materials for employees. The index measured the 85 biggest technology and finance companies on their respect for free speech and religious freedom.

Jeremy Tedesco, senior vice president of corporate engagement for Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Daily Caller News Foundation it’s clear that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is already “on its way out.”

“What the Trump administration does could really speed up that process, which will ultimately be good for those corporations, for their workforce, for the broader society, because DEI is a toxic ideology that harms everybody it comes into contact with,” he said.

Some companies have already changed DEI policies as a result of pressure from consumers and shareholders, ending their participation in the left-wing Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and abandoning diversity initiatives, Tedesco noted. Under pressure from conservative activist Robby Starbuck, companies like Lowe’s and Tractor Supply Co backtracked on DEI policies, including sponsoring LGBTQ pride parades.

Companies began rolling back their DEI programs after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in higher education in 2023 and conservatives increased their focus on specifically targeting corporations with legal challenges.

“While we urge you to distance yourself from DEI and highly divisive groups like the Human Rights Campaign—which bullies companies into adopting radical, wrong-headed, and reputationally disastrous policies—we also want to caution you against retracting your goal of protecting the civil liberties and dignity of all employees,” the letter continues. “As fiduciaries of your companies, we manage over $16 billion in assets, and we represent working Americans who depend on us to safeguard their financial future, retirement planning, and more. You owe these investors transparency and, when necessary, proactive changes that are in their best financial interests to serve and foster a healthy civil society.”

Inspire Investing director of corporate engagement Tim Schwarzenberger, whose company signed onto the letters, said shareholders “expect those in the c-suite to deliver positive financial results that meet customer demand and contribute to a healthy, civil society.”

“That’s not too much to ask,” Schwarzenberger said in a statement to the DCNF. “For too long, however, corporate leaders have been bullied into taking increasingly extreme positions on hot-button cultural issues and implementing harmful DEI policies that divide up the workforce and society itself.”

Dr. OJ Oleka, Chief Executive Officer of the State Financial Officers Foundation, said public employees “like teachers, law enforcement officers, and fire fighters rely on state financial officers to make and recommend sound fiduciary decisions to secure their financial future.”

“I know this firsthand, as my mother is the beneficiary of my late father’s public pension from his career as a public university professor,” he said in a statement. “My mother deserves the promise of my late father’s pension, and so does everyone else who worked hard to earn one. The DEI regime does not deliver on that promise.”

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States such as Texas, which have taken steps to limit the surge of illegal migrants — reaching record levels under the Biden administration — are now facing lawsuits from the federal government. Similarly, states that passed laws contradicting the Biden administration’s positions on issues like abortion and gender have faced lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the bills.

The amount of lawsuits the Biden administration has filed is “unprecedented,” Hans​​​​ von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“And all of them are examples of the DOJ abusing its law enforcement power and infringing on federalism by going after the states,” he said.

The DOJ sued Virginia on Friday over an initiative intended to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls “too close” to the election. Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin called it a “desperate attempt to attack the legitimacy” of the state’s elections.

“With less than 30 days until the election, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice is filing an unprecedented lawsuit against me and the Commonwealth of Virginia, for appropriately enforcing a 2006 law signed by Democrat Tim Kaine that requires Virginia to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls — a process that starts with someone declaring themselves a non-citizen and then registering to vote,” Youngkin said in a statement.

The administration likewise targeted Alabama over an effort to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls. Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, who announced in August that 3,251 registered voters had been issued noncitizen identification numbers by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), noted the federal government repeatedly denied requests for a list of noncitizens residing in the state.

When the state decided to tackle the issue itself, it was promptly hit with a lawsuit. Removing voters from the state registration list within 90 days of an election violates federal law, the DOJ argued.

The Biden-Harris DOJ has launched an unprecedented assault against American voters.

Just days before the election, they have sued the States of Alabama and Virginia to keep illegal aliens on the voter rolls.

Every single American should be outraged. pic.twitter.com/kuzX1RNcDd

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) October 12, 2024

Other election litigation include the DOJ’s lawsuits against Arizona in July 2022 over a proof of citizenship voting law and Georgia in June 2021 over an election integrity law.

The Supreme Court allowed Arizona to partially enforce its law in August after the Republican National Committee (RNC) intervened in a separate lawsuit brought by a left-wing activist groups. While the high court rejected a ban on casting ballots for president without proof of citizenship, the majority allowed Arizona to reject state voter registration forms that lack it.

In Georgia, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger suggested the DOJ may have coordinated with activists on the case, requesting documents related to the Department’s decision.

“Given that it is a felony under federal law for an alien to register or vote, DOJ should be applauding the states trying to do something about this problem and helping the states defend lawsuits filed against them instead of suing the states,” von Spakovsky told the DCNF, noting the same is true in the immigration space. “The federal government needs the assistance and help of state governments and state law enforcement to enforce our immigration laws and stop the unlawful flood of illegal aliens coming into the country.”

The Biden DOJ has also taken aggressive action against states attempting to crack down on illegal immigration.

It sued Texas in January over a state law that empowers local authorities to arrest migrants who enter illegally, followed by suing Iowa and Oklahoma in May over similar laws.

In 2012, the Supreme Court held that an Arizona law making it a crime to be in the state without authorization was preempted by federal law.

“There was very little chance of Oklahoma or Texas being successful without overturning Arizona v. US, and maybe that is their objective, but it is hardly improper for the federal government to enforce what the Supreme Court has said are unconstitutional laws infringing on the power of the federal government (however much I disagree with the opinion in Arizona v. United States),” Competitive Enterprise Institute attorney Devin Watkins told the DCNF. “The Supreme Court refused to block the Texas statute on an emergency basis, suggesting that it is at least possible that the Supreme Court may overturn Arizona v. US on appeal.”

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador accused the Biden administration of ignoring states’ rights when the DOJ brought a lawsuit challenging Idaho’s abortion ban to the Supreme Court.

The administration sued shortly after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, alleging Idaho’s Defense of Life Act prevents doctors from performing abortions in emergency circumstances as they claim is required under federal law. The Supreme Court reinstated limits on the law in June, sending the case back to the lower court without deciding whether the statute conflicted with federal law.

Currently, the DOJ is fighting Tennessee’s ban on child sex change procedures for minors at the Supreme Court.

South Texas College of Law Houston professor Josh Blackman told the DCNF it looks like the Biden DOJ is “trying to initiate as many lawsuits as possible before the election.”

“If Trump wins, it will be hard for [the] DOJ to terminate pending cases,” Blackman said. “It is also possible private groups can move to intervene to keep the cases alive.”

Watkins disagreed that the Biden administration has pursued more litigation than usual, noting lawsuits over voting issues are “actually quite common due to the federal election issues at stake.”

“Overall, I don’t believe that the federal government appears to be filing lawsuits against states any more often during this administration than in previous administrations,” he said. “Some of this litigation could infringe on states’ rights if successful, and in many cases, the federal government should lose, but this litigation isn’t unusual.”

During the Trump administration, the government sued California for a cap and trade agreement with Quebec. It also sued California, New Jersey and King County, Washington, over sanctuary city policies.

“The Trump administration did other things to put pressure on states to change their laws, like the DHS’s suspension of NY’s access to the Global Entry program, or threatening federal payments to local jurisdictions,” Watkins added.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

Featured Image: Screen Capture/CSPAN

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The Colorado Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit against Phillips after finding the attorney who challenged him in 2017 for declining to create a cake celebrating a male-to-female gender transition did not properly file the case.

“Enough is enough. Jack has been dragged through courts for over a decade. It’s time to leave him alone,” ADF senior counsel Jake Warner said in a statement. “Free speech is for everyone.”

The attorney, Autumn Scardina, called Masterpiece Cakeshop to request a “a pink birthday cake with blue frosting” symbolizing gender transition on the same day the Supreme Court announced it would hear Phillips first case in June 2017.

Scardina initially filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. After the state and Phillips reached a settlement and the case was closed, Scardina filed a new lawsuit in state court in 2019.

The court held Tuesday that Scardina should have appealed the commission’s decision to close the case rather than bringing a new claim under Colorado’s Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA).

BREAKING The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in favor of Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop

Today, the CO Supreme Court dismissed Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Scardina because an attorney harassing Jack did not follow the correct process in suing Jack.

This win ends 12+ years of… pic.twitter.com/QKwwmHlDYV

— Alliance Defending Freedom (@ADFLegal) October 8, 2024

“None of the circumstances that permit an action in the district court occurred here,” the Colorado Supreme Court held. “We therefore vacate both the division’s and the district court’s orders and dismiss this case. In so doing, we express no opinion about the merits of Scardina’s claims, and nothing about today’s holding alters the protections afforded by CADA.”

John McHugh, Scardina’s attorney, told The Associated Press the Colorado Supreme Court “decided to avoid the merits of this issue by inventing an argument no party raised.”

The Supreme Court sided with Phillips in 2018, finding the commission applied CADA in a hostile manner when it found him in violation for declining to create a custom cake for a same-sex wedding. In June 2023, the Supreme Court also sided with Christian web designer Lorie Smith, finding Colorado cannot compel her to create websites for same-sex weddings in violation of her religious beliefs.

“The First Amendment envisions the United States as a rich and complex place where all persons are free to think and speak as they wish, not as the government demands,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion.

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Ryan Routh, who faces two gun charges after allegedly attempting to assassinate the former president on Sept. 15 at his West Palm Beach, Florida, golf club, penned a note telling “the world” that he would offer $150,000 to anyone who could “complete” the job, according to court records. Prosecutors wrote that law enforcement was contacted by a witness on Wednesday who said Routh had dropped off a box at his residence including various letters, along with “ammunition, a metal pipe, miscellaneous building materials, tools, four phones,” several months before the assassination attempt.

“Dear World, this was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump but I am so sorry I failed you,” the letter states. “I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster.”

JUST IN – Letter by Trump gunman Ryan Routh released by DOJ: "I tried my best and gave it all the gumption I could muster. It is up to you now to finish the job; and I will offer $150,000 to whomever can complete the job." pic.twitter.com/j2NsPQuNeA

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 23, 2024

“Everyone across the globe from the youngest to the oldest know that Trump is unfit to be anything, much less a US president,” the letter continues.

The letter goes on to note that Trump “ended relations with Iran like a child and now the Middle East has unraveled,” according to prosecutors.

The witness opened the box left by Routh after learning of the attempted assassination on Sept. 15, the filing states.

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His attorneys urged Judge Tanya Chutkan, who set a schedule allowing prosecutors to file the first brief on presidential immunity Sept. 26, to reconsider her decision. Without addressing ongoing evidence issues, Smith’s filing would “amount to an improper motion for summary judgment in the court of public opinion” ahead of the election, they argued.

Trump’s attorneys noted there are “ongoing discovery violations in this case that implicate Presidential immunity and other strong defenses, including the Office’s failure to produce exculpatory evidence concerning the flaws with this prosecution and the Office’s false allegations.” They said prosecutors conducted their evidence review at a time when they “wholly denied the existence of Presidential immunity,” […]

— Read More: thelibertydaily.com

In an amicus brief filed in United States v. Skrmetti, organizations including Giffords, the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Team Enough and March For Our Lives Action urged the Supreme Court to strike down a Tennessee law banning sex change procedures for minors, claiming such laws contribute to a “climate of hostility that puts transgender individuals directly at risk.” The groups also argued that youth who identify as transgender are at a higher risk of committing suicide using a firearm when they cannot access “gender-affirming care,” a euphemism for life-altering medical interventions.

“In the face of the ongoing gun violence crisis gripping our nation, ensuring access to gender affirming care for transgender youth is not merely a matter of medical necessity—it is a crucial component in our fight against the epidemic of gun violence that disproportionately threatens this vulnerable population,” the groups argued.

The correlation between a “surge in violence” and “discriminatory legislation” cannot be ignored, the groups argued.

“By denying access to gender-affirming medical care, SB1 not only inhibits the ability of transgender youth to present as their authentic selves safely in society, but it also perpetuates the dangerous and baseless perception that transgender individuals who seek medical transition pose a threat to society,” the groups argued. “This dual effect—increasing transgender individuals’ visibility as potential targets while also stoking societal fears— creates a perfect storm of increased violence against an already vulnerable population.”

Yvin Shin, Judicial Associate at March For Our Lives, said in a statement that the organization “won’t stop fighting until trans youth, like all people, can live safe, healthy, and authentic lives in a world free from gun violence.”

A four-year systemic view of transgender medical studies conducted in England by Dr. Hilary Cass found “weak evidence” for offering puberty blockers to children. Additionally, the April report found there was “no clear evidence” that social transitions have any impact on mental health outcomes among children.

The report also found there was “major methodological problems” with most studies suggesting “gender-affirming” treatments reduced suicide risk. It did find that the widespread claim may pressure families to seek out those treatments.

“In summary, the evidence does not adequately support the claim that gender affirming treatment reduces suicide risk,” the report found.

Audrey Hale, the shooter who murdered six during a March 2023 attack on a private Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee, identified as transgender. Hale’s diary, which was released fully on Tuesday, reflected struggles with the belief that she was born in the wrong body.

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Merchan wrote Trump offered “nothing new” for the court to consider, but merely “repeated arguments that have already been denied by this and higher courts.” Trump, who was convicted in May on 34 counts for falsifying business records, has argued since before the start of his trial that Merchan should recuse from the case due to his daughter’s work at the political consulting firm Authentic Campaigns, which provides services to Democratic clients.

“This Court now reiterates for the third time, that which should already be clear — innuendo and mischaracterizations do not a conflict create,” Merchan wrote. “Recusal is therefore not necessary, much less required.”

NEW: Juan Merchan denies Trump’s 3rd motion to recuse based on his daughter’s growing and thriving Dem consulting business.

Loren Merchan had banked at least $13 million this year, a haul that coincided with Daddy’s trial of Donald Trump: pic.twitter.com/7kU4FtZGUW

— Julie Kelly (@julie_kelly2) August 14, 2024

Trump’s attorneys wrote in a July 31 letter that Merchan’s daughter “has a long-standing relationship with Harris, including work for political campaigns.”

“She has obtained—and stands to obtain in the future extensive financial, professional, and personal benefits from her relationship with Harris,” his attorneys wrote.

“Although Authentic restricted its Twitter account following scrutiny of the recusal issue, the company’s public Twitter profile currently features Harris,” Trump’s attorneys continued. “According to public reports around July 29, 2024, Authentic’s founder—a partner and colleague of Your Honor’s daughter—leads a group called ‘White Dudes for Harris,’ which has raised millions of dollars for Harris’s current campaign against President Trump.”

District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office argued in an Aug 1 response that Trump’s attorneys identified “no new facts.”

“This regurgitated showing does not come close to meeting the standard to renew,” prosecutors wrote.

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The ASPS, a group representing 92% of plastic surgeons in the U.S. and over 11,000 worldwide, is now the first major U.S.-based medical association to question guidelines set by organizations like the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which recommend allowing adolescents to undergo hormone therapy and genital surgeries, the City Journal first reported Monday. The organization confirmed to the DCNF that it “has not endorsed any organization’s practice recommendations for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”

“ASPS currently understands that there is considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria, and the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty,” the organization said in a statement. “This patient population requires specific considerations.”

In 2021, the ASPS stated that it “actively opposed legislation seeking to criminalize actions by physicians and guardians when minors receive gender affirmation surgery.” Its 2023 legislative priorities included “opposing attempts to criminalize gender affirmation.”

The organization said it is “reviewing and prioritizing several initiatives that best support evidence-based gender surgical care to provide guidance to plastic surgeons.”

BREAKING: The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, an organization representing 92% of all board-certified plastic surgeons in the U.S., becomes the first major medical association to break from the consensus over “gender-affirming care” for minors.

This is big news.

— Leor Sapir (@LeorSapir) August 12, 2024

Transgender activists in the past have frequently claimed that “every major medical association” recognizes interventions such as cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers and genital surgeries as medically necessary. U.S. medical associations, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, have opposed restrictions on transgender procedures for minors in a number of states on this basis.

Following the April publication of the Cass review, a four-year review of medical studies commissioned by the National Health Service (NHS) England that found “weak evidence” for offering puberty blockers to children, most U.S. medical associations remained silent and did not express any concern about its findings.

The review found the “apparent consensus” on these issues may stem from the “circularity” of groups like WPATH and the Endocrines Society citing each other’s recommendations. Though the Cass review concluded that its findings should “raise questions about the quality of currently available guidelines,” neither WPATH nor the Endocrine Society committed to doing their own review.

Over the past several months, court documents and internal leaks revealed a lack of internal consensus within WPATH and showed it allowed its purportedly evidence-based standards to be influenced by policy and litigation considerations. They also showed that WPATH suppressed or chose not to seek evidence reviews that undermined their recommendations.

Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine also pressured WPATH to remove minimum age recommendations, court documents revealed.

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Days after President Joe Biden called for a constitutional amendment making it clear “no President is above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a bill that aims to reverse the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling. Schumer’s “No Kings Act” introduced on Thursday doesn’t stop with reversing the Supreme Court’s decision, but would strip the Supreme Court of jurisdiction to even consider challenges to prosecuting a former president for alleged crimes related to official acts, along with challenges to the bill itself.

“None of that is constitutional,” Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, told the DCNF in reference to the provisions of Schumer’s bill.

Shapiro said both Schumer’s bill and Biden’s proposal for an amendment are “making too much” of Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion.

“It’s a reasonable and fairly narrow decision,” he said. “The outcry about it is either disingenuous or just not understanding the law.”

The Supreme Court held on July 1 that presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” taken in office. The majority opinion left the task of analyzing which allegations in former President Donald Trump’s indictment are official acts subject to immunity for the lower courts.

John Yoo, University of California, Berkeley law school professor, told the DCNF that “the call to override the Court on the presidential immunity decision is part and parcel of Kamala Harris’s progressive assault on the Constitution.”

“Overruling the Court — through unconstitutional means such as a statute — show the disregard progressives hold for a co-equal branch of government,” Yoo said. “It fits with the call to place term limits on the Justices, which Biden proposes and Harris supports, or even to pack the Court, which Harris called for in 2020. It is an obvious threat, even if it never passes, against the Court simply because progressives disagree with the Court’s interpretation of the Constitution.”

Vote line-ups from the past term conflict with Democrats’ narrative that the Supreme Court is “out of control.”

Several high-profile cases, including challenges to the abortion pill and former president Donald Trump’s eligibility for the 2024 ballot, ended in unanimous rulings. Just half of the 22 decisions that split 6-3 were divided along expected ideological lines, with the Republican-appointed justices on one side and the Democrat appointees on the other, according to Empirical SCOTUS.

Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson told the Daily Caller News Foundation the bill is just “the latest salvo in the Democrats’ war on the Supreme Court.”

“If Democrats want to abolish presidential immunity, they cannot do so retroactively, but could try to pass a prospective constitutional amendment,” Jacobson told the DCNF. “Recognizing the unlikelihood of a constitutional amendment, Schumer seeks an end run by trying to limit the right to appeal to the Supreme Court. Whether that work-around is viable remains to be seen, but there is nothing principled about it.”

Biden proposed on Monday implementing term limits for justices, passing a binding code of ethics and enacting a constitutional amendment clarifying presidents do not have immunity from prosecution for official acts.

The Founders were explicit: no man in America shall be a king.

But the MAGA Supreme Court threw out centuries of precedent and anointed Trump and subsequent presidents as kings above the law.

That's why I'm introducing the No Kings Act to crack down on this dangerous precedent.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) August 1, 2024

Since Schumer’s bill would limit the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction, South Texas College of Law Houston professor Josh Blackman highlighted in Reason that “a conviction of the President of the United States would stop with the inferior courts, and most likely, the D.C. Circuit, which by the way, will have a Democratic-appointed majority for at least the next two decades or so.”

Blackman noted the bill stands “no chance” of passing in the current Congress, but could pass if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election and Democrats take majorities in both houses.

“Once the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction is stripped for presidential immunity, it is only a matter of time before similar bills are passed for abortion, the Second Amendment, RFRA, and so on,” Blackman wrote. “This bottomless hole keeps going deeper.”

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/CSPAN)

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Last year on Independence Day, U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty issued the initial injunction blocking a range of government agencies from communicating with social media companies to suppress speech, calling the government’s actions “Orwellian.” But one year later, with the Fifth Circuit’s narrower injunction now lifted by the Supreme Court in Murthy v. Missouri, officials have free rein to again employ the same tactics.

“It’s basically a roadmap for government actors, not just the federal government, but also state and local government actors, to reach out to social media companies and pressure them into censoring this disfavored speech,” Center for American Liberty associate counsel Eric Sell told the DCNF.

The Supreme Court held that plaintiffs in the case, who included two states and five individuals, did not have standing to seek an injunction against the government.

In her majority opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said the plaintiffs failed “to link their past social-media restrictions to the defendants’ communications with the platforms.” She also noted that platforms had “independent incentives to moderate content,” making it difficult for the plaintiffs to establish they were harmed directly as a result of the government’s requests.

Justice Samuel Alito worried in his dissent that the Supreme Court’s ruling, though it did not reach the merits of the issue, would send the message that coercive government campaigns against certain speech can run unchecked if “carried out with enough sophistication.”

Alito wrote that the Court “permits the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think.”

John Vecchione, senior litigation counsel at the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which represents some plaintiffs in Murthy v. Missouri, told the DCNF that the majority’s decision gives government officials “wide running room” to put pressure on companies behind the scenes.

Agencies such as the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) already resumed communications with social media platforms after multiple justices appeared sympathetic to the government’s position during oral arguments in March, reports indicated at the time.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement following the ruling that the Court’s decision “helps ensure the Biden Administration can continue our important work with technology companies to protect the safety and security of the American people.”

The #SCOTUS decision in Murthy v. Missouri undermines the #FirstAmendment in today's digital era by allowing government censorship without accountability.

This ruling completely disregards the Founding Fathers' belief that combating problematic speech should involve promoting… pic.twitter.com/tMeQoKsnBS

— New Civil Liberties Alliance (@NCLAlegal) July 3, 2024

“If courts require very strong evidence of causal links plus an ‘ongoing’ campaign just to get standing, government agencies can use that procedural requirement to escape judicial scrutiny of even very extensive indirect censorship,” George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin wrote last week in Reason. “That problem is likely to become more severe as agencies figure out the relevant standing rules, and try to tailor their threatening communications to firms in ways that exploit them.”

Without an injunction, there’s nothing preventing the government from doing during the 2024 election what it did to encourage platforms to restrict content in 2020. As documents uncovered in the course of litigation revealed, officials demanded companies censor speech not only about COVID-19 but also the election.

During 2020, CISA engaged in “switchboarding” efforts, which allowed state and local election officials to flag “misinformation” posts for the agency, which it would in turn share with social media platforms.

State officials have also undertaken similar actions.

Sell represents a client, conservative political commentator Rogan O’Handley, who sued when his account was allegedly censored and later suspended by Twitter after California’s Office of Election Cybersecurity flagged it over a 2020-election related post. The Supreme Court declined on Monday to take up his case.

As the Murthy v. Missouri case returns to the district court, Vecchione said they will seek more evidence of government coercion through discovery.

“The Supreme Court has demanded a very high standard, and if the government is going to press on that standard, well, they’ve got to drop their shorts and show us everything,” Vecchione said.

Some plaintiffs suggested Congress step in after the ruling.

Health Freedom Louisiana co-director Jill Hines said Congress should “act immediately to defund agencies and third parties actively involved in this broadly pervasive and unconstitutional censorship scheme.” Stanford University School of Medicine professor Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya likewise said concrete action is needed to “restore free speech rights as a central plank of the American civic religion.”

Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Chief Counsel Robert Corn-Revere made a similar call for Congress to “take action.”

“Despite reams of evidence documenting government pressure, the court held today these plaintiffs lacked standing to sue,” he said. “FIRE is concerned about what this means for future First Amendment plaintiffs. But the majority opinion notes courts have the power to stop government attempts to pressure social media platforms when proven. That’s important.”

NCLA Chief Executive Officer Philip Hamburger wrote in a column Tuesday that the decision made the First Amendment “for all practical purposes, unenforceable against large scale government censorship.”

“The decision is a strong contender to be the worst speech decision in the court’s history,” he said.

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