Supreme Court Lifts Temporary Halt on Ohio’s Qualified Immunity Ballot Initiative

April 23, 2025 TruthUSA

The ruling comes after the court’s decision on April 10, which stopped the initiative effort from moving forward.

On April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court retracted its order from April 10 that had temporarily halted Ohio voters advocating for the repeal of the qualified immunity rule from collecting signatures to place the issue on a future state ballot.

Three justices expressed dissent, stating they would have preferred to maintain the order.

Qualified immunity is a judicially established doctrine that protects government officials, including police officers, from personal liability unless they violated a clearly defined statutory or constitutional right. In recent years, civil liberties advocates have increasingly criticized qualified immunity, arguing that it enables government officials to evade accountability for serious misconduct.

On April 10, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost submitted an emergency application to the Supreme Court requesting a suspension of a March 14 ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. This district court had directed Yost to “immediately certify” the proposed language, which is a crucial step in the ballot placement process.

Soon after, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, acting on behalf of the Supreme Court, suspended the district court’s order without providing a rationale. This administrative stay allowed the justices additional time to evaluate Yost’s request to formally obstruct the lower court’s ruling.

Kavanaugh, responsible for emergency appeals from Ohio, instructed the respondents—voters Cynthia Brown, Carlos Buford, and Jenny Sue Rowe—who have repeatedly asked Yost to certify the proposed ballot language, to submit a response to the Supreme Court by April 16.

On April 22, Kavanaugh submitted the application to the entire court. In an unsigned order, the court opted not to block the lower court ruling, thus vacating Kavanaugh’s earlier administrative stay. The majority opinion did not provide an explanation for this decision.

Justices Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito dissented, stating they would have supported Yost’s request to halt the district court ruling, without elaboration.

The proposed amendment to the Ohio constitution, titled “Protecting Ohioans’ Constitutional Rights,” aims to eliminate immunity-based defenses for any “government actor” being sued for violating state constitutional or civil rights.

According to Yost’s application, Ohio’s ballot initiative law mandates the state attorney general to review initiative summaries created by ballot question supporters prior to their circulation to ensure they accurately represent the proposed state constitutional amendment.

In March 2024, Yost assessed the initiative summary from voters and determined that it “did not provide a fair and truthful representation of their proposed amendment.” The summary was dismissed “due to repeating inaccuracies and omissions identified in prior rejected summaries,” as stated in the application.

U.S. District Judge James L. Graham ruled on March 14 that the necessary review infringed on the First Amendment and issued a preliminary injunction directing the attorney general to “immediately certify” the proposed language.

According to the judge, Yost’s repeated rejections of the summaries presented by voters “elevated to a level of hyper-correctness that exceeded ensuring that citizens understood what they were supporting.”

“The Attorney General has, it could be said, assumed the role of a critical copy editor, rejecting [the voters’] submissions on technicalities,” Graham noted.

On April 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit lifted the stay, allowing the enforcement of the district court’s order, citing various reasons including probable violations of the voters’ First Amendment rights.

The Sixth Circuit’s ruling contradicts decisions made by the Eighth, Tenth, and District of Columbia Circuits, as noted in Yost’s application.

Without prompt action from the Supreme Court, the Attorney General would have to comply with the preliminary injunction and certify the plaintiffs’ summary language, according to the application.

“If this injunction remains, it will cause irreparable harm to Ohio. The injunction modifies Ohio’s nearly century-old process for amending its Constitution, despite the fact that the federal Constitution does not mandate such a process. It is hard to envision a greater affront to Ohio’s sovereignty than this,” the application contended.

On April 16, the voters submitted a brief to the Supreme Court arguing that they would suffer “irreparable injury” if the justices suspended the district court order.

The fact that Yost has failed “to demonstrate any irreparable harm justifying his emergency relief request is grounds to reject the application,” the brief asserted.

Meanwhile, the Sixth Circuit is set to hold expenditure briefings in the case “to ensure that its decision is made well ahead of ballot printing for the November 2025 election,” the brief added.

“After four years of delays due to Yost’s continuous rejections of summary proposals, the voters would once again be unable to circulate their petitions with their desired summaries and would miss the July signature collection deadline to place their proposed amendments on the November general election ballot,” the brief concluded.

The voters urged the Supreme Court to annul the April 10 administrative stay, warning that “there will be no method to reverse this injury should [the voters] eventually succeed with their challenge—at the very least, they may only aim for the November 2026 election.”

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