NCLA Asks D.C. Circuit to Affirm that Courts Can Hear Constitutional Cases on FTC Enforcement

Media Matters for America v. United States Federal Trade Commission, et al.

Washington, DC, Jan. 12, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The New Civil Liberties Alliance filed an amicus curiae brief today in support of neither party urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to affirm that the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has jurisdiction to hear Media Matters for America v. Federal Trade Commission. NCLA does not take a position on the merits of Media Matters’s claims that the FTC investigation demanding internal information from the organization violates the First and Fourth Amendments. The district court issued a preliminary injunction that halted the investigation. NCLA addresses FTC’s insistence upon exclusively managing this dispute in its own internal adjudication system, which puts the agency in charge of deciding the question of its own powers and exclusively controls access to the courts for judicial review of that decision. The D.C. Circuit should reject FTC’s argument on this point, which flies in the face of NCLA’s hard-won Supreme Court victory in Michelle Cochran v. SEC (a/k/a Axon Enterprise, Inc. v. FTC).

NCLA persuaded the Supreme Court in April 2023 that our client Michelle Cochran and other Americans could bring constitutional challenges against government agencies like SEC in federal court before enduring allegedly unconstitutional administrative adjudications. Axon/Cochran unanimously overruled six circuit courts of appeal that had trapped parties subject to arbitrary or unconstitutional agency power, forcing them to languish indefinitely in years of administrative proceedings while enduring ongoing, here-and-now violations of their civil rights. The Justices specifically ruled that Axon Enterprise, Inc. and Michelle Cochran had the right to a district court hearing over FTC’s and SEC’s unconstitutional, biased and due-process-denying adjudication schemes.

The Supreme Court had already decided this question as far back as 2010 in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, a ruling that also unanimously recognized district courts’ statutory jurisdiction over such claims. More recently, the Supreme Court in SEC v. Jarkesy recognized Article III district court jurisdiction, including the right to a neutral adjudicator for agency prosecutions. These precedents mean Media Matters deserves its day in district court for its constitutional lawsuit against FTC, rather than being consigned to FTC’s internal tribunal which would delay judicial review until, as Justice Kagan wrote in Axon/Cochran, it would be “too late to be meaningful.”

FTC argues that the district court lacks jurisdiction over the case because the agency claims the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 gives it authority to enforce its Civil Investigative Demands in court as part of cases it brings. But Media Matters brought this lawsuit, not FTC, and the agency has not yet and may not ever sue to enforce the CID against the organization in court. Moreover, FTC’s CID review procedure was established by regulation, not by any statute, so it cannot oust jurisdiction long conferred by Congress on district courts by statute. The mere existence of an in-house adjudication or CID enforcement scheme does not take away district court jurisdiction to hear claims that an agency has violated the Constitution.

NCLA released the following statements:

“Executive branch administrative agencies cannot pass regulations that purport to displace the judicial power from courts to the agency—especially not when the question is whether the agency itself has violated the Constitution! Such claims must be decided promptly and exclusively in the courts which alone have the power and duty to decide them.”
— Peggy Little, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

“Plaintiffs alleging violations of their constitutional rights deserve to be heard in a court of law—not by a commission acting as both the prosecutor and the judge.”
— L. Margaret Harker, Senior Litigation Counsel, NCLA

“When will federal agencies get the message? The Supreme Court has spoken quite clearly in cases like Cochran and Jarkesy. Defendants in agency enforcement actions have a right to contest constitutional aspects of their cases, at least, in federal district court. It is surprising to see this administration stan for the Administrative State by resisting federal district court jurisdiction.”
— Mark Chenoweth, President, NCLA

For more information visit the amicus page here.

ABOUT NCLA

NCLA is a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group founded by prominent legal scholar Philip Hamburger to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State. NCLA’s public-interest litigation and other pro bono advocacy strive to tame the unlawful power of state and federal agencies and to foster a new civil liberties movement that will help restore Americans’ fundamental rights.

Judy Pino
New Civil Liberties Alliance
202-869-5218
judy.pino@ncla.legal

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