The United States Supreme Court today again unanimously ruled in favor of Finney Law Firm client, COAST Candidates PAC, in a second case against the Ohio Elections Commission. You can read the docket entry here.
Our firm presently has three cases pending against the Ohio Elections Commission, and is about to bring a fourth, challenging the Ohio statutes that empower the Commission to sit in judgment of the truth or falsity of statements made during the course of political campaigns.
To date, the Ohio Elections Commission has avoided judicial scrutiny of the statutes using “standing arguments, saying essentially that litigants are always in court at the wrong time, and that there is no time at which an action is proper to challenge the constitutionality of the statute and OEC’s enforcement procedures.
With these two rulings from the United States Supreme Court, they have found that COAST in each case does in fact have legal standing to raise the constitutional challenges and the matters proceed to full determination at the trial court.
The third case remains pending in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, Magda v. Ohio Elections Commission, where it has been for more than a year and a half. The fourth case will be filed in Federal District Court shortly.
