Summaries of 2013 Term cases
State and Local Legal Center annual summary
State and Local Legal Center summary of policy cases
2013 AMICUS BRIEFS WHICH ICMA HAS SIGNED ONTO:
Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga v. Sebelius: The Supreme Court held 5-4 that the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), as applied to closely held corporations.
Wood v. Moss: The Supreme Court unanimously granted qualified immunity to two Secret Service agents who moved anti-Bush protesters a block further from the President than pro-Bush supporters.
Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States: The Supreme Court decided that an abandoned railroad right-of-way granted by the General Railroad Right of Way Act of 1875 goes to the person who has acquired the land underlying the right-of-way rather than the United States.
Plumhoff v. Rickard: The Supreme Court held 7-2 that police officers didn’t violate the Fourth Amendment when they shot and killed the driver of a fleeing vehicle to end a dangerous car chase. Alternatively, the Court unanimously concluded the officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
McCullen v. Coakley: In a unanimous opinion in McCullen v. Coakley the Supreme Court held that a Massachusetts statute making it a crime to stand on a public road or sidewalk within 35 feet of an abortion clinic violates the First Amendment.
Click here to listen to a recording of the October SLLC webinar discussing these cases.
OTHER 2013 CASES THAT WILL IMPACT LOCAL GOVERNMENT:
In Lane v. Franks the Supreme Court held unanimously that the First Amendment protects a public employee who provides truthful sworn testimony, compelled by a subpoena, outside the course of his or her ordinary responsibilities. Edward Lane, a program director at a public community college, claimed he was fired in retaliation for testifying at a criminal trial that he fired a state legislator who was on his payroll but wasn’t doing any work. The First Amendment protects public employee speech made as a citizen on a matter of public concern. In 2006 in Garcetti v. Ceballos the Court held that when public employees speak pursuant to their official job duties they are speaking as employees and not as citizens for First Amendment purposes. It was undisputed that Lane’s ordinary job duties did not include testifying in court proceedings. Lane learned about what he spoke about at work but “the mere fact that a citizen's speech concerns information acquired by virtue of his public employment does not transform that speech into employee-rather than citizen-speech. The critical question under Garcetti is whether the speech at issue is itself ordinarily within the scope of an employee's duties, not whether it merely concerns those duties.” Read more about this case on ICMA's Knowledge Network.
In CTS Corp. v. Waldburger the Supreme Court held 7-2 that the federal Superfund statute, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), does not preempt state statutes of repose. The EPA told North Carolina homeowners in 2009 that their well water was contaminated, allegedly by CTS Corporation, which had sold its electronics plant in 1987. The homeowners brought a state-law nuisance claim. North Carolina’s statute of repose prevents a defendant from being sued for a tort more than 10 years after the defendant’s last culpable act. The Court held Section 9658 does not preempt statutes of repose. Section 9658 uses the term “statutes of limitations” four times, when explicitly preempting statutes of limitations, but it never uses the term “statutes of repose.” While the Court concluded this isn’t dispositive, “other features of the statutory text further support the exclusion of statutes of repose.” Five states have repose periods (Alabama, Connecticut, Kansas, Oregon, and North Carolina). Additional state legislatures may adopt them in response to this decision. Statutes of repose cut both ways for local governments involved in environmental cleanup litigation. In some instances a local government may be accused of being the contaminator. In other instances a local government may be trying to recover from a non-government contaminator.
In a recent 5-4 decision the Supreme Court held that the Town of Greece did not violate the First Amendment by opening its meetings with a prayer. The Court rejected respondents’ arguments that legislative prayer cannot contain sectarian language and prayers before town board meetings are coercive. Prayer before town board meetings isn’t coercive just because citizens who attend meetings often have business before the board. Prayers in this context—and the state legislative context where citizens can only address state legislatures by invitation—aren’t intended for the public but for the lawmakers “who may find that a moment of prayer or quiet reflection sets the mind to a higher purpose and thereby eases the task of governing.” Read the Town of Greece v. Galloway opinion here.
The Supreme Court’s recent affirmative action ruling should be viewed through the lens of public employment and contracts, not just public universities. In Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action the Supreme Court held 6-2 that voters may by ballot prohibit affirmative action in public universities admission decisions. While this case was limited to the use of race in public university admission decisions, Michigan’s constitutional amendment also prohibits the use of racial-preference in state and local government employment and contracting. Presumably, these provisions are also constitutional. As NCSL’s Affirmative Action: State Action chart describes, a number of states prohibit the use of affirmative action in local government employment and contracting. While those for and against the ballot measure disagree about the wisdom of the Court’s decision, both agree that it will only be a matter of time until more states ban follow Michigan’s lead. Read more about the Court's decision on SCOTUSblog.
In early April, the Supreme Court struck down aggregate limits on individual contributions to candidates for federal office, political parties, and political action committees. McCutcheon v. FEC will likely impact the dozen or so states (see NCSL’s “State Limits on Contributions to Candidates” chart) that place aggregate limits on individual campaign contributions to candidates for state office. The constitutionality of these state laws seems doubtful in the wake ofMcCutcheon. A cursory glance at state campaign finance laws regulating local elections indicates that states generally have not adopted aggregate caps meaning this decision not affect contributions to local elections. Read more about the case here on ICMA’s Knowledge Network.
In Heien v. North Carolina a police officer pulled over a car because he thought that North Carolina law required that motor vehicles have two working brake lights. It turns out the officer was wrong. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether a traffic stop is permissible under the Fourth Amendment when it is based on an officer’s misunderstanding of the law. The North Carolina Supreme Court held that mistakes of law that are objectively reasonable do not invalidate traffic stops. The lower court reasoned that reasonableness is the “primary command” of the Fourth Amendment, “[a]ccordingly, requiring an officer to be more than reasonable, mandating that he be perfect, would impose a greater burden than that required under the Fourth Amendment.” Read more about the case on SCOTUSblog.
Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA: In 2007 in Massachusetts v. EPA the Supreme Court ruled that EPA has the authority to regulate the emissions of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles under the Clean Air Act (CAA). The question inUtility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA is whether EPA may regulate greenhouse gases emitted from stationary sources, like power plants and factories, too. Local governments are affected by this case because, on one hand, they own stationary sources that emit greenhouse gases and may require permits, and on the other hand, they would benefit from reduced greenhouse gases emissions.
The Supreme Court recently decided the Clean Air Act’s (CAA) Good Neighbor Provision prohibits upwind states from emitting air pollution in amounts that will contribute significantly to downwind states failing to attain air quality standards. In EPA v. EME Homer City Generation the lower court concluded that upwind states must be given a chance to allocate their emissions budgets when they are known, before the federal government can do so, and that EPA can only rely on physical contributions to air pollution when determining responsibility for downwind pollution. The Court concluded the CAA does not require that states be given a second opportunity to file State Improvement Plans after EPA has informed the states of their emissions budgets. The Court further concluded that the Good Neighbor Provision does not require EPA to disregard costs and consider only each upwind state's physically proportionate responsibility for each downwind air quality problem. States and local governments filed on both sides in this case.
