Background
This matter was before the Tenth Circuit on remand from the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had previously reversed the judgment of this court and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion in Chiles v. Salazar, 146 S. Ct. 1010 (2026).
The court’s reasoning
The court issued an order and judgment remanding the case to the United States District Court for the District of Colorado for further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion. The court granted the Plaintiff-Appellant’s unopposed motion to expedite the issuance of the mandate consistent with the Supreme Court’s judgment.
The dissent
The Supreme Court has definitively ruled that the Colorado MCTL regulates Ms. Chiles’s speech in a viewpoint-discriminatory manner and therefore the regulation of her speech is subject to strict scrutiny. Colorado must prove its restriction on speech is narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests.
Hartz
What it means going forward
The litigation returns to the District Court for further proceedings, though the dissenting judge believed the outcome was effectively decided by the Supreme Court’s strict scrutiny ruling.
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