The New York Times is very upset the Supreme Court upheld First Amendment rights

According to the paper of record, the ruling is a terrible victory for shadowy right-wing groups.

“The Supreme Court rejected California’s requirement that charities report the identities of major donors, siding with conservative groups who said the disclosures could lead to harassment,” the New York Times reported in a breaking news update.

It added, “California’s requirement was challenged by Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a group affiliated with the Koch family, and the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian public-interest law firm. They said it violated the First Amendment.”

Notably absent from the New York Times’s breaking news characterization of the Supreme Court’s ruling is any mention of the fact that a bipartisan coalition of nonprofit organizations opposed the law. This wasn’t just a “right-wing” thing. Indeed, along with conservative groups, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the American Civil Liberties Union opposed the disclosure law. In opposing the legislation, both the NAACP and ACLU correctly argued such laws regularly lead to targeted harassment.

I say “correctly” because if any organization knows something about the dangers of the state demanding access to membership rolls, it’s the NAACP. It fought this exact fight nearly 70 years ago when, in a broader effort to block the NAACP from conducting business in its state, Alabama issued a subpoena demanding the names and addresses of its rank-and-file members. (The state of Alabama lost that fight for obvious constitutional reasons.)

So, when California assures everyone its disclosure law is harmless because only state officials will have access to private membership rolls, the NAACP can be forgiven for laughing out loud.

By the way, the New York Times’s subsequent report on the Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t mention California’s law was opposed by both the Left and the Right until the 29th paragraph of a 31-paragraph story.

California officials maintained their law merely protected against fraud. But critics of the measure argued the bill served only to squash political engagement, as the fear of retaliation for having associated with a partisan cause far outweighs the desire to participate in said cause.

The Supreme Court sided this week with critics of the law.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion, argued there was a “dramatic mismatch” between the law’s stated goals and what it actually accomplished. Moreover, Roberts noted, the disclosures required by the measure were not used in any fraud prevention efforts.

“The upshot is that California casts a dragnet for sensitive donor information from tens of thousands of charities each year, even though that information will become relevant in only a small number of cases involving filed complaints,” the Chief Justice wrote.

California officials argued the disclosure rule did not endanger political contributors. Roberts disagreed, noting donors who have had their names leaked in the past have been subjected to threats and actual violence.

“Such risks are heightened in the 21st century and seem to grow with each passing year, as ‘anyone with access to a computer [can] compile a wealth of information about’ anyone else, including such sensitive details as a person’s home address or the school attended by his children,” Roberts wrote.

The court ruling is a victory for the First Amendment. As such, it’s a victory for everyone.

Not so, says Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, whose entire shtick is railing against “dark money” in politics. He is distraught this week following the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“The Court That Dark Money Built just built dark money a home in our Constitution,” he said on social media. “A dark, dark day for democracy.”

He added, “This was the case in which an unprecedented armada of 50 dark-money-funded front groups came to the Court at the certiorari stage to urge the Justices selected and campaigned for by dark money groups to take the case. It’s not even subtle. This is their big payback.”

Similar to the New York Times, Whitehouse weirdly omits the “front groups” that rallied against the disclosure law include the Council on American-Islamic Relations, PETA, PEN America, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Human Rights Council. These are the very antithesis of right-wing groups that supposedly “selected” the justices who reaffirmed First Amendment rights.

I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that both Whitehouse and the New York Times characterize the ruling as a win for conservative groups exclusively.

Once again, it’s impossible not to notice that a major newsroom’s framing of a key political issue lines up exactly with Democratic Party talking points. Just once, for variety’s sake, it’d be nice to see the “coincidence” go in the other direction. Just once.