RUTHFULLY YOURS

All year long, Mr. Cuomo has been doing whatever he thinks he needs to do to ensure that actress Cynthia Nixon doesn’t threaten his lock on the Democratic nomination and his expected November re-election. On Wednesday, Ms. Nixon and Mr. Cuomo will meet in their one and only debate before September’s Democratic primary. The New York Daily News reports: “Sources close to her and other political observers believe she will come in armed with a number of one-liners aimed at the governor in hopes of getting the notoriously prickly Cuomo off his game.”

Mr. Cuomo has been much worse than prickly to gun owners and those who wish to do business with them. Of course the NRA is the perfect foil for a northeastern politician looking to fend off a challenge from the “progressive” left. But Mr. Cuomo’s infringement of fundamental rights threatens all New Yorkers with progressively greater harm. And it could haunt Empire State citizens long after he leaves office.

In May this column described how Mr. Cuomo was using the state’s financial regulatory agency to intimidate insurance companies, banks and other firms into turning down business with the NRA. The gun-rights group sued Mr. Cuomo after he ordered the state’s Department of Financial Services to tell the firms it oversees “to review any relationships they may have with the National Rifle Association and other similar organizations. Upon this review, the companies are encouraged to consider whether such ties harm their corporate reputations and jeopardize public safety.”

The same day as Mr. Cuomo’s announcement, New York’s chief financial regulator Maria Vullo sent out a bulletin urging companies to manage their “reputational risks” related to organizations like the NRA. She claimed that “in this area society, as a whole, has a responsibility to act and is no longer willing to stand by and wait and witness more tragedies caused by gun violence, but instead is demanding change now.” Ms. Vullo and her agency have also been sued by the NRA.

In a single stroke, Mr. Cuomo was not just attacking cherished rights described in the Constitution’s first two amendments; he was simultaneously corrupting financial regulation. Theoretically, Ms. Vullo’s job is to ensure the soundness of the firms under her supervision, and to protect customers against fraud—not to enforce a political agenda and deem any business the governor dislikes a “reputational risk.” The tenth anniversary of the 2008 panic, which inspired the creation of Ms. Vullo’s agency, is a reminder of the consequences when regulators fail to focus on their core missions.

The Cuomo/Vullo threat to personal liberty is even more grave. The good news is that the Second Amendment crowd isn’t the only group that still believes in the First Amendment. In an amicus brief filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, the ACLU writes on the issues raised by the Vullo bulletin:

The April 2018 “Guidance[s]on Risk Management Relating to the NRA and Similar Gun Promotion Organizations,” indisputably targeted the NRA and similar groups based on their “gun promotion” advocacy. It is important to note that, however controversial it may be, “gun promotion” is core political speech, entitled to the same constitutional protection as speech advocating for reproductive rights, marijuana legalization, or financial deregulation.

The ACLU concludes that because the NRA “has plausibly alleged that Defendants threatened adverse action against banks and insurers associated with the NRA, and that Defendants’ actions were motivated by hostility to the NRA’s political advocacy,” the court should deny New York’s motion to dismiss the NRA lawsuit.