“The U.S. Supreme Court has resoundingly held that ‘[g]overnment officials cannot to attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors’,” the complaint said. “FPF’s advertisement is pure political speech at the very heart of the First Amendment’s protections.”
“‘[T]he advocacy of a politically controversial viewpoint’ is, in fact, ‘the essence of First Amendment expression,’” the lawsuit continued. “The State’s threatened sanctions against third-party media organizations that host the advertisement — in a heavy-handed effort to silence FPF’s speech — is a classic and deeply disturbing example of unconstitutional coercion.”
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