[February 25, 2025] Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), an organization of top attorneys that regularly defend Americans’ constitutional rights, joined a coalition of organizations to file an amici (friend of the court) brief with the Supreme Court in support of pro-life group, First Choice Women’s Resource Center. The coalition is urging the Supreme Court to stop New Jersey Attorney General Platkin from forcing the center to disclose sensitive information about its practices and donors.
SLF argues that AG Platkin’s demands are merely an intimidation tactic to undermine the operations of the pro-life center while violating its First Amendment rights. The Supreme Court has long protected the right to anonymously donate to a cause or organization. But if AG Platkin has his way and forces the center to reveal the identity of its donors, those donors will undoubtedly be deterred from giving to the center.
This behavior is on par with “Mr. Platkin’s record of pro- abortion and anti-pro-life pregnancy center advocacy while in office . . ..” Permitting such overreaches by the New Jersey Attorney General means “. . . the guarantees of the Constitution will be reduced to little more than ‘parchment barriers.’” AG Platkin’s actions violate the First Amendment protections and “will chill the speech and associational rights” of First Choice’s donors.
Rather than complying with his duty to address crime within his state, the brief says, “Mr. Platkin sought to undermine political diversity by squeezing organizations that advocate views and provide services with which he disagrees,” a tactic that they say is “antithetical to the First Amendment’s protections of association and speech.”
The brief concludes: “No state official should be able to use his legitimate law enforcement power to pursue those with whom they disagree politically.”
Download press release.