First Choice Women’s Resource Centers, Inc. v. Davenport · ¶49

Seeking to persuade us otherwise, the Attorney General tries to analogize this case to Laird v. Tatum, 408 U. S. 1 (1972), where we found the plaintiffs' alleged First Amendment injury merely “subjective” and self-imposed, and thus insufficient to create a justiciable controversy. Id., at 13–14. But this case is nothing like that one. There, the plaintiffs alleged that their First Amendment associational rights were “chilled” not by any “specific action . . . against them,” but “by the mere existence, without more” of a government program they thought was “inappropriate” or “dangerous.” Id., at 3, 10, 13 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, by contrast, the Attorney General targeted First Choice for investigation. He commanded production of its private donor information. And his command, even if not immediately enforceable, is backed by a threat of court-ordered compliance followed…

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