Until November 2010, Bennie worked for LPL Financial (LPL). LPL is a broker-dealer, meaning it holds accounts and assets and executes financial transactions. It operates through agents like Bennie, who deal with customers. As a broker-dealer, LPL is subject to regulation by the Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance (department). Among other things, the department regularly reviews LPL’s agents’ advertisements and other public statements for compliance with applicable rules. The department can sanction broker-dealers and their agents for violations, including by fining them or barring them from operating in Nebraska.

In late 2009, … [t]he compliance supervisor at the [D]epartment, Rodney Griess, … reviewed a television commercial in which Bennie rode a horse and said he would give customers who did business with him “a hundred dollars towards the purchase of a firearm.” Because Griess thought the offer “unusual,” he suspected Bennie had not gotten the necessary approval from LPL to run the commercial. Eventually, Griess scheduled a conference call to talk to LPL about the issues with Bennie.

A few days before the call, the Lincoln Journal Star ran a story about Bennie’s role in the Tea Party political movement. The article quoted Bennie denouncing the government and politicians, including President Barack Obama. The article also mentioned Bennie’s business and was accompanied by a photograph of Bennie at his desk in his office.

Griess emailed LPL a link to the online version of the article. In the body of his message, Griess quoted Bennie, in the article, calling President Obama “a communist,” “dishonest,” and “an evil man.” The next day, Griess told a colleague his upcoming call with LPL would cover Bennie’s “recent string of activities; i.e., lack of … disclosure, gun slingin ads, and calling Obama a ‘communist’ and an ‘evil’ man issues.”

On the call, department employees and LPL discussed Bennie’s CD and commercial and the article about him, and the department asked for information about LPL’s review, if any, of the commercial and the article. Afterward, in an email exchange with LPL to schedule a follow-up call, Griess wrote that it “would be nice to know” if

LPL sent Griess materials from its review and approval of the commercial and told him it had not reviewed the article. In response to Griess’s question about LPL’s supervision of Bennie, LPL explained that since a recent internal reorganization, Bennie’s proposed advertisements were reviewed by a senior analyst. Department employees asked whether LPL had any guidelines about agents like Bennie publicly communicating their political views. LPL said it did not….

Bennie contacted Nebraska Governor David Heineman and told him the department was targeting Bennie and “harassing [Bennie] because of his political views.” Governor Heineman called Munn to discuss the situation. Afterward, Munn had Griess review a draft memorandum responding to the Governor. Griess observed the draft did not say anything about the newspaper article and explained he “felt compelled to at least mention it” because

Munn agreed to “mention that situation.” …

LPL fired Bennie at the beginning of November 2010. [The district had court concluded that the firing was not connected to Bennie’s politics, and the court of appeals concluded that this decision wasn’t clearly erroneous.–EV] …