Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

The California Department of Corrections Rehabilitation (Department) challenged a trial court ruling striking down its regulation excluding from early parole consideration inmates serving sentences for current nonviolent sex offenses requiring them to register under Penal Code section 290. On appeal, the Department claimed its regulation was supported by Proposition 57’s overarching goal of protecting public safety and the requirement that the Secretary of the Department certify the Department’s regulations enhanced public safety. The Court of Appeal determined the regulation at issue contravened the plain language of the statute, so it affirmed the trial court’s ruling. View "Alliance for Constitutional etc. v. Dept. of Corrections etc." on Justia Law

In 2015, the Washington legislature enacted RCW 81.104.160(1) (MVET statute) authorizing Sound Transit to use two separate depreciation schedules to calculate motor vehicle excise taxes (MVET). Under the statute, Sound Transit could pledge revenue from a 1996 depreciation schedule for MVETs to pay off bond contracts; Sound Transit could use a 2006 depreciation schedule for all other MVETs. Though each schedule is referenced, the MVET statute did not restate in full either schedule. Taylor Black and other taxpayers alleged the MVET statute violated article II, section 37 of the Washington Constitution, stating "no act shall ever be revised or amended by mere reference to its title, but the act revised or the section amended shall be set forth at full length." The Washington Supreme Court held the MVET statute is constitutional because (1) the statute was a complete act because it was readily ascertainable from its text alone when which depreciation schedule would apply; (2) the statute properly adopted both schedules by reference; and (3) the statute did not render a straightforward determination of the scope of rights or duties established by other existing statutes erroneous because it did not require a reader to conduct research to find unreferenced laws that were impacted by the MVET statute. View "Black v. Cent. Puget Sound Reg'l Transit Auth." on Justia Law

The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's suit, alleging that President Trump violated the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 by obscuring liabilities on financial disclosure reports, because plaintiff has not shown that he has a clear and indisputable right to mandamus-type relief. Specifically, plaintiff alleged that President Trump violated the Act by over-disclosing; that is, by listing debts in Part 8 of his May 2018 and May 2019 financial disclosure reports for which he was not personally liable.The court rejected plaintiff's contention that the declaratory judgment statute and the federal question statute provided statutory bases for jurisdiction. The court also held that the Mandamus Act did not provide a base for jurisdiction, because plaintiff failed to plausibly allege that the Ethics Act, once interpreted, imposed a clear and indisputable duty on President Trump to differentiate personal from business liabilities. Therefore, the court vacated the portions of the district court's decision addressing whether the equities would favor issuing mandamus-type relief but otherwise affirmed the judgment of the district court dismissing the case for lack of jurisdiction. View "Lovitky v. Trump" on Justia Law

City of Atlanta (“the City”) and the Atlanta Independent School System (“APS”) were involved in a dispute over the City’s annexing property in Fulton County, while it expressly prohibiting the co-expansion of APS’s territory. The Georgia Supreme Court granted the City’s application for interlocutory appeal challenging the trial court’s denial of its motion to dismiss. The Court concluded this matter did not amount to an actual, justiciable controversy; consequently, it vacated the trial court’s order and remanded for this case to be dismissed by the trial court. “These parties have appeared before this Court numerous times, and the instant dispute is part of a larger, ongoing disagreement between the City and APS. … Mere disagreement about the ‘abstract meaning or validity of a statute [or ordinance]’ does not constitute an actual controversy within the meaning of the Declaratory Judgment Act. … APS has failed to establish the existence of an actual controversy, for purposes of declaratory relief, because it has failed to demonstrate that a ruling in its favor would have any immediate legal consequence.” View "City of Atlanta v. Atlanta Indep. Sch. Sys." on Justia Law

215 Members of the Congress sued President Donald J. Trump based on allegations that he has repeatedly violated the United States Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause. The district court denied the President's motion to dismiss the complaint.The DC Circuit reversed and held that the members of Congress lacked standing. The court held that the district court erred in holding that the members suffered an injury based on the President depriving them of the opportunity to give or withhold their consent to foreign emoluments, thereby injuring them in their roles as members of Congress. The court held that Raines v. Byrd, 521 U.S. 811, 818 (1997), and Va. House of Delegates v. Bethune-Hill, 139 S. Ct. 1945, 1953–54 (2019), were controlling in this case. In Bethune-Hill, the Supreme Court summarily read in Raines that individual members of Congress lack standing to assert the institutional interests of a legislature in the same way a single House of a bicameral legislature lacks capacity to assert interests belonging to the legislature as a whole. The court stated that the members—29 Senators and 186 Members of the House of Representatives—do not constitute a majority of either body and are, therefore, powerless to approve or deny the President's acceptance of foreign emoluments.Accordingly, in regard to the district court's holding that the members have standing, the court reversed and remanded with instructions to dismiss the complaint. In regard to the district court's holding that the members have a cause of action and have stated a claim, the court vacated as moot. View "Blumenthal v. Trump" on Justia Law

An investigation into the Hattiesburg municipal court system led to several local news stories. One online story posted a copy of the police department’s internal-affairs investigative report of the court system, which the media outlet obtained from a city councilman. Attached to this report was a copy of municipal court clerk Sharon Mark’s medical-leave form. The form indicated Mark had asked for leave to undergo breast-cancer surgery. Aggrieved by public disclosure of her medical condition, Mark sued the mayor and five city council members for invasion of privacy. To get around the Mississippi Tort Claims Act, Mark asserted that the mayor and city council members were individually liable because they had acted with malice. But at trial, the evidence showed the disclosure of her medical- leave form was at most negligence. Because Mark failed to support her claim that the mayor and council members maliciously invaded her privacy, the Mississippi Supreme Court held the trial court did not err by granting these individual defendants a directed verdict. View "Mark v. City of Hattiesburg" on Justia Law

Respondents-Proponents Andrew Moore, Janet Ann Largent, and Lynda Johnson filed Initiative Petition No. 420, State Question No. 804 (IP 420), with the Secretary of State of Oklahoma. The initiative measure proposed to submit to the voters the creation of a new constitutional article, Article V-A, which would create the Citizens' Independent Redistricting Commission (Commission). IP 420 would vest the power to redistrict the State's House of Representatives and Senatorial districts, as well as Federal Congressional Districts, in this newly created Commission. IP 420 would also repeal current constitutional provisions concerning state legislative apportionment. Notice of the filing was published on October 31, 2019; within 10 business days, Petitioners Rogers Gaddis and Eldon Merklin petitioned the Oklahoma Supreme Court in its original jurisdiction to challenge the legal sufficiency of IP 420. They alleged the proposed amendment by article suffered from two fatal constitutional defects: (1) the single subject rule, and (2) the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. In case number 118405, the Supreme Court determined IP was legally sufficient for submission to the people of Oklahoma. In case number 118406, however, the Court determined the gist statement of IP 420 did not fairly describe the proposed amendment, and ordered it struck from the ballot. View "In re: Initiative Petition 420, State Question No. 804" on Justia Law

The First Circuit dismissed Petitioner's petition for review of a decision of the Bureau of Immigration Appeals (BIA) rejecting reopening and reconsideration of denial of relief from removal, holding that the limitations in 8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(2)(C)-(D) divest this Court of jurisdiction over the petition.Petitioner, a native and citizen of Sudan, was removed from the United States after his robbery conviction. Petitioner later filed a motion to reopen removal proceedings as to his requests for relief based on purported changed country conditions in Sudan. The motion was filed outside the ninety-day deadline for motions to reopen and the thirty-day deadline for motions to reconsider. The immigration judge denied the motion. The BIA dismissed Petitioner's appeal, concluding that 8 C.F.R. 1003.23(b)(1) prevented Petitioner from filing his motion to reopen and, alternatively, that the motion was denied in the exercise of the BIA's discretion. The First Circuit dismissed Petitioner's petition for review, holding that because no questions of law or constitutional claims were presented by Petitioner's challenge to the BIA's alternative discretionary holding, the jurisdictional bar set forth under 8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(2)(C)-(D) applied. View "Daoud v. Barr" on Justia Law

The First Amendment does not create an implied damages action against officials in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for retaliatory administrative enforcement actions under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA). The DC Circuit held that, consistent with the Supreme Court's marked reluctance to extend Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971), to new contexts, the First Amendment does not create such an implied damages action.In this case, plaintiff filed suit against the United States and four OCC officials, alleging Bivens claims against the officials as well as various tort claims. The Bivens claims were based on the theory that the officials caused the OCC enforcement action in retaliation for plaintiff's protected speech criticizing an OCC investigation, in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution. The court held that this case clearly presented a new Bivens context, and FIRREA's administrative enforcement scheme is a special factor counselling hesitation. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss plaintiff's First Amendment claims. View "Loumiet v. United States" on Justia Law

Under Ind. Code 31-14-7-1(1), a husband is presumed to be a child’s biological father; both spouses are listed as parents on the birth certificate and the child is deemed to be born in wedlock. There is no similar presumption with respect to a same-sex couple. The district court issued an injunction requiring Indiana to treat children born into female-female marriages as having two female parents, who must be listed on the birth certificate. Because Indiana lists only two parents on a birth certificate, this prevents the state from treating as a parent the man who provided the sperm but requires that one spouse, who provided neither sperm nor egg, be identified as a parent. The court reasoned that Indiana lists a husband as a biological parent (when a child is born during marriage) even if he did not provide sperm, and must treat a wife as a parent even if she did not provide an egg. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, citing the Supreme Court’s 2017 holding, Pavan v. Smith, that same-sex and opposite-sex couples must have the same rights with respect to the identification of children’s parentage on birth certificates. Indiana’s statutory presumption violates the Constitution. The court rejected the state’s arguments that the statutory presumption is rebuttable. View "Henderson v. Box" on Justia Law