The NCLA's president and chief legal officer is Mark Chenoweth.
Cases In 2023, the NCLA filed an appeal with the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of
Emmanuel Lemelson, a hedge fund manager accused of civil securities fraud, and subsequently found liable for making statements that were untrue, but not fraudulent. The petition hinged on a constitutional
freedom of expression question: can the SEC "punish commentary about publicly traded corporations that contains a few purported misstatements or omissions when a jury has cleared the accused of all fraud and deception charges"? Also in 2023, the NCLA represented Judge
Pauline Newman of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit with respect to efforts by colleagues on the court to unilaterally suspend her from her judicial duties. The NCLA obtained expert reports indicating that the judge was fit to serve, and challenged the constitutionality of the effective removal of an
Article III United States federal judge from office without
due process of law. The NCLA challenged President
Joe Biden's
student loan forgiveness plan, arguing that "A forgiveness program of this magnitude should have gone through rulemaking." The NCLA argued that Biden's plan violated the Constitution's Appropriations Clause, which says Congress can decide what debt owed to the Treasury can be canceled. The NCLA, on behalf of five social media users, joined several states in bringing a
First Amendment case against the Biden administration, arguing that the administration had violated free speech rights by pressuring major social media platforms to remove misleading or false content about
COVID-19. In September 2023, a panel of the
United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Biden administration had overstepped the First Amendment when it "coerced the platforms to make their moderation decisions by way of intimidating messages and threats of adverse consequences" and "significantly encouraged the platforms' decisions by commandeering their decision-making processes."
Murthy v. Missouri was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 26, 2024. The Court ruled 6–3 that the states and social media users lacked standing to bring suit, with the majority opinion finding that the plaintiffs lacked any "concrete link" between the content moderation decisions that the plaintiffs complained of and the conduct of government officials. The NCLA argued in favor of overturning
Chevron deference, a principle directing courts hearing regulatory disputes to defer to a government agency's reasonable interpretation when the governing law is ambiguous. The 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision in
Garland v. Cargill held that the ATF exceeded its authority in ruling bump stocks as machine guns. In April 2025, the NCLA filed a lawsuit challenging the
Trump administration's imposition of sweeping Chinese import tariffs. The lawsuit alleges that Trump lacked the legal authority to impose the tariffs and that he had misapplied the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act. An NCLA attorney said "By invoking emergency power to impose an across-the-board tariff on imports from China that the statute does not authorize, President Trump has misused that power, usurped Congress's right to control tariffs, and upset the Constitution's separation of powers." ==See also==