CYNTHIA BROWN; CARLOS BUFORD; JENNY SUE ROWE v. DAVID YOST, in his official capacity as Ohio Attorney General - Articles

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Posted by: Karen Belcher on Jun 2, 2024

Court: 6th Circuit Court (Published Opinions)

Attorneys 1: ON BRIEF: Mark R. Brown, CAPITAL UNIVERSITY, Columbus, Ohio, Oliver Hall, CENTER FOR COMPETITIVE DEMOCRACY, Washington, D.C., for Appellants.

Attorneys 2: ON BRIEF: T. Elliot Gaiser, Katie Rose Talley, OFFICE OF THE OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellee.

Judge(s): MOORE, BUSH, and MATHIS, Circuit Judges

Court Appealed: United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio at Columbus

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge. To get a proposed constitutional amendment on the Ohio ballot, petitioners must submit their amendment, a summary of their amendment, and one thousand qualified supporting signatures to the Ohio Attorney General. The Ohio Attorney General must then determine if the summary is a fair and truthful statement of the proposed amendment and, if so, certify the summary. Only once the Attorney General certifies the summary may petitioners begin collecting the approximately 400,000 signatures necessary to put the proposed amendment on the ballot.

Plaintiffs-Appellants (“Plaintiffs”) are Ohio voters who, together, seek to amend the Ohio Constitution through a ballot initiative. Pursuant to Ohio law, Plaintiffs drafted their amendment and summary, collected their one thousand qualified supporting signatures, and filed it with the Ohio Attorney General, David Yost. On at least six occasions, Yost declined to certify Plaintiffs’ summary. After Yost’s most recent decision denying certification, Plaintiffs turned to the Supreme Court of Ohio for review. When the state supreme court declined to grant expedited review, Plaintiffs filed a complaint in federal district court seeking injunctive relief. In their complaint, Plaintiffs alleged that Yost’s enforcement of Ohio Revised Code § 3519.01 functions as an unconstitutional obstacle to their ballot access and their ability to speak about and advocate for their proposed amendment as they wish, in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The district court denied Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunctive relief. For the reasons that follow, we REVERSE the district court’s order and GRANT Plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunctive relief. We also DENY as moot Plaintiffs’ motion for an injunction pending appeal.

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