Supreme Court oral arguments today featured a notable moment of dissent from Chief Justice John Roberts and New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, as well as her conservative colleagues regarding a case involving Crisis pregnancy centers.
The case before the justices, First Choice Women’s Resource Centers Inc. v. Platkin, concerns whether these centers can challenge a broad 2023 subpoena in federal court rather than state court – raising significant constitutional questions about procedural limitations and free speech protections for such organizations.
Platkin issued the demanding subpoena as part of an investigation into whether First Choice center misled patients and donors concerning services related to abortion through deceptive marketing practices.
The centers argue that forced disclosure violates their First Amendment rights by threatening donor privacy and chilling potential contributions, asserting it impedes freedom of internal communication necessary for operation. Lower courts previously dismissed this challenge as premature because enforcement hadn’t occurred yet against the nonprofit group operating multiple centers in New Jersey.
During questioning by Roberts who queried why donors should feel “comfortable” with government access to their personal information from a potential future disclosure list, New Jersey attorney Sundeep Iyer defended the scope of the request. She emphasized that state seeks only for past misleading instances and assured it wouldn’t cause constitutional harm until court-ordered enforcement.
But Kagan notably pushed back against this reasoning during questioning. “An ordinary person,” she said to Platkin, “presented with this subpoena asking for names, addresses, phone numbers… contributions… is not going to take that as very reassuring.” She questioned if the potential chilling effect of donor information being exposed should be dismissed simply because enforcement hasn’t occurred.
This moment highlighted a shared unease among several justices concerning how sweeping government inquiries could impact sensitive political and spiritual organizations. While Kagan’s comments didn’t reach a final ruling, they signaled judicial concern about the power of state investigations to compel disclosure from advocacy groups like First Choice without prior federal court review.
If successful in this case or similar ones nationwide, such a ruling would allow groups challenging politically motivated subpoenas direct access to federal courts, arguing for constitutional protections against invasive government requests targeting donors.
