We will hear argument this morning in case 24-781, First Choice Women's Resource Centers

versus Plotkin. Ms. Hawley.

Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court.

This Court has long safeguarded the right of association by protecting the membership and donor lists of nonprofit organizations like First Choice.

Yet the Attorney General of New Jersey issued a sweeping subpoena, commanding on pain of contempt that First Choice produced donor names, addresses, and phone

numbers so his office could contact and question them. That violates the right of association.

Yet the lower courts held that First Choice must litigate its First Amendment claims in

state court. That violates this court's decision in Nick, contradicts the court's virtually

unflagging obligation to decide cases within their jurisdiction and runs contrary to Section

1983. Even the Attorney General now agrees as much. His newest rationale for evading review,

questioning First Choice's chilling injury, fails for two reasons.

First, First Choice's associational interests were harmed the moment it received a coercive subpoena demanding donor names on pain of contempt.

This is true irrespective of whether the subpoena is non-self-executing, for even an unenforceable threat

may chill First Amendment freedoms. Second, the Attorney General does not dispute that First

Choice faces a credible threat of enforcement, and there's no question that First Choice's

First Amendment interests are arguably burdened by the subpoena. This Court's cases require no more.

The Attorney General's proposed subpoena exception from ordinary Article III rules would

mean that the NAACP could have received a hostile subpoena from an Attorney General

and Federal Court review would not have been available until a state court ordered production.

But then, Younger Abstention and Res. Utakata would almost certainly slam the federal court house doors shut.

This court should reverse and hold that this subpoena violates the First Amendment and satisfies Article 3.

Your argument seems to be based on the mere reception of the subpoena.

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