Year
Issue Area
Court
2026
Rio Grande Foundation v. Oliver
Question Presented
1. Whether New Mexico’s informational interest is sufficient under exacting scrutiny to justify applying its disclosure regime to issue advocacy organizations, like Petitioner, that engage in no express advocacy or its functional equivalent. 2. Whether applying New Mexico’s disclosure regime to an organization that does not meet Buckley’s “major purpose” test and does not engage in express advocacy, like Petitioner, constitutes narrow tailoring under exacting scrutiny absent donor earmarking. 3. Whether disclosure regimes applied to issue advocacy organizations, like Petitioner, that engage exclusively in political speech—without express advocacy or its functional equivalent—must satisfy strict scrutiny rather than exacting scrutiny.
2026
The Babylon Bee v. Bonta
Question Presented
Whether a California law that required large online platforms to police digitally created or modified political speech (so-called “deepfakes”) hosted on their platforms and remove them; label them as “materially deceptive content”; and provide a reporting mechanism to report content for removal or labeling, violates Section 230.
2026
E.D. v. Noblesville School District
Question Presented
Whether Hazelwood applies (1) whenever student speech might be erroneously attributed to the school, as the Fifth, Seventh, and Tenth Circuits have held; (2) when student speech occurs in the context of an “organized and structured educational activity,” as the Third Circuit has held; or (3) only when student speech is part of the “curriculum,” as the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits have held.
2025
The Buckeye Institute v. Internal Revenue Service
Question Presented
Whether exacting scrutiny governs a First Amendment challenge to 26 U.S.C. § 6033(b)(5)’s requirement that nonprofit organizations disclose their “substantial contributors.
2025
National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo
Question Presented
When it is obvious that a government official’s conduct violates the Constitution under longstanding Supreme Court precedent, is the violation clearly established for purposes of qualified immunity despite some factual distinctions that are irrelevant under the governing constitutional rule?
2025
First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Platkin
Question Presented
Whether, when the subject of a state investigatory demand has established a reasonably objective chill of its First Amendment rights, a federal court in a first-filed action is deprived of jurisdiction because those rights must be adjudicated in state court.
2025
Villarreal v. Alaniz
Question Presented
(1) Whether it obviously violates the First Amendment to arrest someone for asking government officials questions and publishing the information they volunteer; and (2) whether qualified immunity is unavailable to public officials who use a state statute in a way that obviously violates the First Amendment, or instead shields those officials.
2025
Center for Arizona Policy, Inc. v. Arizona Secretary of State
Question Presented
Whether Arizona’s Prop 211, which requires multi-layer donor disclosure for issue advocacy, violates the First Amendment.
2025
Chiles v. Salazar
Question Presented
Whether a law that censors certain conversations between counselors and their clients based on the viewpoints expressed regulates conduct or violates the Free Speech Clause.
2025
Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board v. Drummond
Question Presented
1. Whether the academic and pedagogical choices of a privately owned and run school constitute state action simply because it contracts with the state to offer a free educational option for interested students.
2. Whether a state violates the Free Exercise Clause by excluding privately run religious schools from the state’s charter-school program solely because the schools are religious, or whether a state can justify such an exclusion by invoking anti-establishment interests that go further than the Establishment Clause requires.
2025
First Choice v. Platkin
Question Presented
Where the subject of a state investigatory demand has established a reasonably objective chill of its First Amendment rights, is a federal court in a first-filed action deprived of jurisdiction because those rights must be adjudicated in state court.
Amicus Commentary
- All
Freelancing or free speech? California’s AB5 gets speaking professionals coming and going
Threats to free speech can be veiled as restrictions on economic activity. California’s AB5 is the latest example. Many people who don’t prefer traditional office environments have benefited from independent contracting. From freelance photographers to truckers to massage therapists, workers can find freedom in setting their own hours and being their own boss. California took…
Censorship by stealth: Can government officials censor speech by pressuring third parties to do it for them?
For this newsletter, I’m delighted to have Cindy Crawford, AFPF Senior Policy Counsel, take over to discuss censorship by stealth and two upcoming cases in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. – Casey UPDATE: On 5/30/2024, in a win for the First Amendment, the Supreme Court unanimously decided in NRA v. Vullo that government officials…
The Supreme Court can stop unelected bureaucrats and private corporations from imposing taxes
Americans for Prosperity Foundation recently filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Consumers’ Research v. Federal Communications Commission, urging the Court to grant Consumers Research’s cert petition and enforce the Constitution’s system of checks and balances. At issue is the constitutionality of the Universal Service Fund, a social welfare program that subsidizes certain consumers’ telecommunications services at…
Corner Post gives Supreme Court a chance to keep the courthouse doors open to new businesses harmed by stale, lawless regulations
by Michael Pepson Americans for Prosperity Foundation filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Corner Post, Inc. v. The Federal Reserve, urging the Court to allow Corner Post’s challenge to a 2011 debit-fees regulation that Corner Post believes to be beyond the Board’s power. The question presented may seem dry: when does…
303 Creative LLC v Elenis: The Biggest Supreme Court Free Speech Case You Might Not Have Heard About
A small independent website designer in Colorado is getting national attention. Why? The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case next week about whether the government can force her to say something that goes against her personal beliefs. It’s one of the biggest free speech cases this Supreme Court term. And you may not have…
Tiwari v. Friedlander asks: Is depriving patients of medical services rational?
Commonplace in the market for medical services, certificate-of-need laws prohibit medical providers from practicing or expanding unless they can demonstrate not only “need” for their proposed services but also survive a bureaucratic gauntlet that can take years, cost thousands of dollars, and allow competitors — existing and potential — to challenge the application. The result…
303 Creative LLC v. Elenis asks whether artists can be compelled to speak
Public accommodations laws help ensure a free and open economy. Traditionally, these laws have been applied to, well, public accommodations, such as hotels, or “what the old common law promised to any member of the public wanting a meal at the inn, that accepting the usual terms of service, they will not be turned away…
Congress, not bureaucrats, should make federal criminal law
By Michael Pepson Would it surprise you to know that Congress has granted the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) unfettered power to write its own criminal code governing one-tenth of the land in the United States? A Nevada federal court ruled that Congress unconstitutionally transferred its legislative power to write crimes to the BLM. Last…