NEW YORK — State supreme courts across the country are poised to hear a series of significant cases in June that could shape public policy on property taxes, voting rights, firearm regulations, court access and protections for incarcerated transgender people, according to a report released Monday by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law.
On Monday, the State Court Report from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law previewed oral arguments in state court cases that address issues such as the regulation of tobacco products in Ohio, a firearm ban for individuals under age 21 in Delaware, Oklahoma’s program to eliminate property taxes for owner-occupied homes and more.
On June 2, the Oklahoma Supreme Court will decide if a proposed citizen initiative on the elimination should advance to signature collection. This initiative would “eliminate property taxes for owners who live in their homes.”
The plaintiffs included “residents who are on school boards, a fire chief, and rural law enforcement.” They argued that if the proposed statute is approved in November, it would have “a devastating effect on Oklahoma by reducing revenue by over $1.5 billion annually and affecting numerous government services, particularly schools.”
They also claimed that this law would violate the state constitution, specifically the tax uniformity clause, by “giving preferential treatment to homeowners,” and conflict with specific provisions governing property taxes.
Those in support of the initiative argued that “the ballot measure is authorized by a separate state constitutional provision that permits the legislature to exempt homesteads from property taxes.” Since the provision does not explicitly exclude legislation enacted through the citizen initiative process, “any ambiguity should be construed in favor of the people’s right of initiative.”
Both parties also argued whether “subsequent property-tax related amendments nullified this provision.”
In the California Supreme Court on June 3, Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court of Contra Costa County will “consider whether a state law prohibiting the electronic recording of most types of proceedings violates the California Constitution’s due process, equal protection, and separation of powers protections” in instances where there is “no court-provided reporter available to transcribe the proceeding and a litigant cannot afford to hire a private court reporter.”
This petition by legal assistance groups stemmed from the state’s widespread shortage of court reporters.
The petitioners have support from “numerous amicus groups,” who help argue that “prohibiting electronic recording in these circumstances ‘materially impairs’ trial courts’ ability to satisfy their obligation … to ensure that indigent litigants have full access to the judicial system.” They also contend it obstructs appellate courts’ ability to “review lower court proceedings.”
California courts have attempted to “recruit new reporters,” and many trial courts have “directed clerks to use electronic recording, notwithstanding the statute, when a judge so instructs after determining that a hearing implicates fundamental rights.”
Nonetheless, the petitioners argued that “broader relief from the statute is necessary.” They stated that “access to free verbatim records” should be “available to low-income litigants in all civil proceedings and not dependent on a judge’s discretion.”
On June 10, Malcom v. Gray in the Wyoming Supreme Court will decide whether the state can “freeze primary voters’ ability to change parties.”
The Wyoming Supreme Court will “hear a challenge to statutory changes passed in 2023 that restrict so-called ‘crossover voting.’” This would prevent voters from “declaring or changing their party affiliation within 96 days of the state’s primary.” This deadline is set to “fall before candidates are allowed to apply to run in the primary election.”
In response, a “coalition of voters, former candidates, and a retired state legislator” challenged the changes under Wyoming constitutional provisions requiring “open, free and equal” elections, protecting the “untrammeled exercise of the right of suffrage,” and restricting conditions on “political rights.”
The plaintiffs argued that even though the court “correctly recognized voting rights as fundamental,” it failed to adopt a “lenient standard for election statutes akin to rational basis review.” They noted that the text and “spirit” of the state constitutional provisions require an exacting test.
Wyoming’s secretary of state countered that a rational-basis standard is appropriate because participation in a political party’s nomination process is distinct from the fundamental right to vote in a general election. He argued that “a separate state constitutional clause,” under which lawmakers must “secure the purity of elections,” authorizes the new party registration deadline to prevent “party raiding.”
Also on June 10, the Delaware Supreme Court will “consider whether a state law … that bans adults under 21 from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition, with limited exceptions, violates the right ‘to keep and bear arms.’”
Previously, a trial court “sided with the plaintiffs … in finding a violation,” applying an “intermediate level of scrutiny to the law.”
That decision was appealed because the state and amicus group Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence argued that “the court erred in concluding the law burdened late adolescents’ right to self-defense more than was reasonably necessary to reduce the disproportionate rate of gun violence by this age group.”
In response, the plaintiffs argued that “the test itself is wrong after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen held that gun restrictions must have a historical analogue to satisfy the Second Amendment.” They contended that the Delaware high court should “adopt that originalist approach,” so that the “state constitutional right to arms remains at least as protective as the federal right.” This decision came after Bruen “effectively raised the federal floor through a test less deferential to government regulation.”
The state countered that this logic “conflates the rights afforded under each constitution with the means used by courts to protect them.” It also noted that “federal courts applying Bruen have split in their outcomes.”
Finally, the Washington Supreme Court will review whether the state’s transfer of a transgender woman from a women’s prison to a men’s prison violated the state constitution’s prohibition against “cruel punishment.”
The petition came from Amber Kim after “corrections officials placed her in a women’s facility for her safety and wellbeing after she disclosed she was transgender, but following one nonviolent infraction forcibly transferred her back to a men’s prison.” After nearly two years, Kim remains fearful of sexual assault and harassment if she joins the general men’s population.
She argued that the intermediate court “misapplied the state supreme court’s test for cruel conditions of confinement.” This included whether there is an “objectively significant risk of serious harm or otherwise deprive the petitioner of the basic necessities of human dignity.”
Kim argued that this harm and avoidance of essential functions “vastly outweigh” the interests of the state. Former corrections officials supported Kim in an amicus brief, “citing data that transgender women in men’s prisons are ‘at least ten times more likely to be sexually assaulted than the average adult prisoner.’”
In response, the state said that “Kim’s facility safely houses many other transgender women” and that Kim continues to “receive gender-affirming care there, and corrections staff … regularly review Kim’s custody placement.”
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“They argued that if the proposed statute is approved in November, it would have “a devastating effect on Oklahoma by reducing revenue by over $1.5 billion annually and affecting numerous government services, particularly schools.”
And that’s the problem with using property taxes (a housing cost) to fund schools.