The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for an Ohio constitutional amendment to end qualified immunity to appear on voters’ ballots in a new ruling this week.
Why It Matters
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, had sought to block the amendment from appearing on ballots in 2024 due to concerns about whether the language fairly portrayed the issue, but a majority of the court’s justices decided that the amendment petition could move forward this week.
The court’s bipartisan ruling means Ohio voters will now have the ability to move to get the amendment on ballots. If it makes it to ballots and eventually passes, the change could have key implications for police officers and public officials who are currently shielded by qualified immunity
Newsweek reached out to Yost’s office for comment via email.
What To Know
The U.S. Supreme Court vacated a stay temporarily imposed by Justice Brett Kavanaugh after Yost sought emergency relief on the amendment. Kavanaugh, along with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, dissented. The majority didn’t provide any explanation for why they vacated the stay.
The amendment was intended to appear on the 2024 ballot in Ohio but has faced legal challenges. While petitioners received the 1,000 signatures needed for certification, Yost rejected the amendment proposal because he did not believe it passed the truthful and fair standard. Yost denied them eight separate times over language issues, reported The Columbus Dispatch.
In March, Judge James Graham sided with the voters who are behind the amendment, prompting Yost to appeal to the Supreme Court.
“Last year, the Attorney General concluded that the initiative summary that plaintiffs wish to circulate was not a fair and truthful representation of their proposed amendment. But, if the preliminary injunction goes forward, the plaintiffs will presumably begin circulating petitions to Ohio voters—that contain the unfair summary—within roughly ten days,” Yost’s office wrote in a petition to the court.
The U.S. Supreme Court building is pictured on September 28, 2020, in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Supreme Court building is pictured on September 28, 2020, in Washington, D.C. Al Drago/Getty Images
Yost certified the petition summary on Tuesday, following the court’s ruling, his office stated.
“The office certified the summary language, over its objection, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to stay the preliminary injunction,” the statement read. “With the measure proceeding to the Ohio Ballot Board, the attorney general’s office will also seek to dismiss its appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.”
Yost’s office will work closely with the General Assembly to “reform the ballot initiative summary process to protect the integrity of Ohio’s elections and freedom of speech.”
What People Are Saying
Mark Brown, an attorney for the organizers, told Newsweek: “We are happy with the Supreme Court’s action. It sustained the District Court’s and Sixth Circuit’s conclusions that the Ohio AG violated the First Amendment rights of the Protecting Ohioans’ Constitutional Rights initiative as well as Ohio voters. It is too bad that General Yost was able to waste Ohio taxpayers’ money defending his obviously unconstitutional action.”
Judge James Graham in his March ruling: “As applied, the Attorney General’s denials of plaintiffs’ summaries reached a level of hypercorrectness which went beyond ensuring that citizens could ascertain what they were being asked to support. For instance, the Attorney General rejected plaintiffs’ November 2023 summary in part because it did not explain that the amendment would apply to immunities or defenses available to government actors or ‘any subset thereof.'”
What Happens Next
The petition has now been certified, but it still needs to go through several steps to appear on the ballot. It must now receive 442,958 signatures across the state from at least 44 counties, according to the attorney general’s office.
