The New Jersey attorney general is defying a U. S. Supreme Court decision by moving to enforce a subpoena on five pro-life pregnancy centers, despite the high court’s ruling in favor of the centers only a day before.
The April 29 Supreme Court ruling allowed First Choice Women’s Resource Center, which operates five pregnancy centers, to bring its lawsuit against the state back to the federal court. The court’s opinion sided with First Choice’s arguments, stating that “the Attorney General’s demand for private donor information injures the group’s First Amendment associational rights.”
First Choice had filed suit after the former attorney general, Matthew Platkin, had ordered the Christian nonprofit to disclose up to 10 years of internal confidential documents, as well as donor names, phone numbers, addresses and places of employment.
Current New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed a motion asking the state court to nullify the pause on the subpoena and enforce the demand.
Kristen Waggoner, president and CEO of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), the organization who is legally representing First Choice, responded to Davenport’s action.
“A state AG’s office has spent more than two years using its coercive subpoena power to target a pro-life pregnancy center without any evidence of wrongdoing,” she said. “The Supreme Court just unanimously affirmed that demanding private donor information chills First Amendment rights and gets First Choice into federal court. One day later, the AG is racing to a state court to enforce the same subpoena before federal review can occur.”
Davenport’s office argued that First Choice had sued in federal court “to create duplicative litigation” and only the New Jersey court “actually has the ability to enforce the subpoena.”
But First Choice had filed suit to the federal court first—not the state, and then New Jersey, under Platkin, filed its own case in the state court after the federal lawsuit filing to impose the subpoena.
Waggoner countered their claim, addressing the order of lawsuits.
“The duplication [Davenport] now blames on First Choice is one her own office created,” she said.
Waggoner further explained the filed motion in a post on X.
“The very next day, NJ’s AG filed a letter with the state court demanding the subpoena be enforced immediately, in full, before any federal review,” Waggoner said. “Three things about the letter stand out:
- It demands the state court rush to judgment before a federal court can rule on First Choice’s constitutional challenges.
- It maintains the subpoena’s request for private donor information, despite SCOTUS’s clear statement that the request burdens First Amendment rights.
- It accuses First Choice of ‘sprinting to the federal courthouse’—while itself sprinting to state court to enforce the subpoena.”
Platkin’s demand for the subpoena came after he investigated First Choice under the Reproductive Rights Strike Force, a policy he had established. Platkin accused the group of “seek[ing] to prevent people from accessing comprehensive reproductive healthcare” by false advertising.
After First Choice initially refused to comply with the subpoena, asserting it violated their First Amendment rights, Platkin claimed the pregnancy center violated state law. First Choice then attempted to challenge the subpoena, but a federal judge sided with the state. An appellate court then backed the judge before First Choice sought a hearing from the Supreme Court, which heard its case in December.
