The federal court of appeals held on April 9 that the vote question advocates’ right to free speech was likely violated.
On April 10, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order temporarily preventing Ohio voters in favour of repealing qualified immunity rules, and collects signatures to issue issues in future Ohio votes.
Qualified immunity, a rule created by the court, protects government officials, including police officers, from personal liability, unless the misconductor violates a clearly established right. Civic libertarians have become increasingly critical of qualified immunity in recent years, saying that government officials can escape liability for sometimes terrible misconduct.
A Supreme Court order, known as administrative stay, gives judges time to consider Yost’s request to formally block lower court orders.
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In March 2024, Yost reviewed the response’s initiative summary and concluded that it was “not a fair and true representation of the proposed revision.” The summary was denied “due to repeated misstatement and omissions identified by the Attorney General in a previously denied summary,” the application said.
Various rejections of Yost’s summary have reached a level above that the respondents who presented him “have been able to ascertain what citizens are being asked to support,” the judge wrote.
For example, Yost rejected the November 2023 summary. “It rejected the amendment, saying it did not explain that it would apply to government officials or “an immunity or defenses available to a subset of it.”
“The Attorney General may say he played the role of a hostile copy editor and did the job of a strike (respondent) for technical reasons,” Graham wrote.
Graham maintained the injunction on March 17th, allowing the decision to be appealed by the state. The court cannot predict whether the appeal will be successful, but he wrote, “at least plausible.”
The Circuit wrote that respondents’ initial right to amendments was likely violated and “we will grant motion (respondent) to lift the stay, as other factors of stay are not weighing down on Yost’s favor.”
According to Yost’s application, control of the Sixth Circuit is inconsistent with decisions made by the 8th, 10th and districts of the Columbia district.
“In the absence of immediate intervention, the Attorney General must comply with the interim injunction and certify the plaintiff’s summary language,” the application said.
“If left in place, the injunction would irreparably harm Ohio, which will change the nearly century of process of amending Ohio’s constitution, despite the federal constitution not requiring such a process.
Yost said in his application that he would win in the case because the respondent’s claim that he was in violation of the right to amendment was invalid.
“The laws regulating the initiative process itself (as opposed to those regulating the speeches of proponents about the initiative) have no relation to the initial amendment.”
