Gus Hurwitz on the Murthy Decision

ICLE Director of Law & Economics Programs Gus Hurwitz was quoted by Salon in a story about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Murthy v. Missouri. You can read the full piece here.

“Over the last couple of years, the Fifth Circuit has become one of the most aggressive circuits for challenging government, power, administrative and state issues, and this is the latest in a string of rebukes that they’ve received,” Gus Hurwitz, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, said. “There’s a question of how much of this is the Supreme Court being skeptical of and really pushing back on the Fifth Circuit, and how much of this is really case specific?”

…“A lot of folks are trying to read tea leaves,” Hurwitz said. “In this case, the Alito dissent has some language about platforms being private actors not subject to the First Amendment.

…Hurwitz said he questioned if the case would end up being litigated again.

“I wonder how unique it was to the setting of both the COVID era and the 2000 election – a unique moment in our history and the role of the platforms,” he said.

“It’s entirely possible that folks aren’t going to let it go and there will be another bite of this apple,” he continued. “But that would require better facts, better plaintiffs, in order to make that happen. And I don’t know that that’s really likely to happen.”