COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio’s Constitution says that a single law can only deal with a single subject, which theoretically prevents lawmakers from passing “Christmas tree” bills, festively adorned with myriad unrelated topics meant to help push through controversial law changes.
But the law doesn’t always work that way in reality. The latest example of this is the state budget bill, which lawmakers in the Republican majority have loaded up with dozens of provisions that have nothing to do with budgeting. Creating “Christmas tree” bills is a common maneuver legislative leaders of all political parties use to more swiftly pass legislation, and to get rank-and-file lawmakers to vote for measures they otherwise wouldn’t support.
But while courts have struck down some laws in recent years for running afoul of the single-subject rule, observers say the limits of the law often are murky or even ignored, especially when it comes to state budget bills.
“At least for the 30 years I was there, I don’t think there’s ever been a very clear black-and-white view on what single subject means when it comes to programs in the budget,” said Brian Rothenberg, a former longtime Democratic operative in Columbus. He helped sue the Kasich administration in 2011, unsuccessfully arguing a provision in that year’s state budget that privatized a state prison in Ashtabula County violated the single-subject rule.
Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a watchdog group, said packed budget bills can prevent public debate on ideas that otherwise should be more thoroughly vetted. She singled out provisions that would let state legislative leaders hire outside attorneys at state expense to intervene in lawsuits over the state’s legislative lines, and another that would require partisan affiliation to be newly listed on ballots for state judicial races, but not local races.
“We’re not seeing the debate or discussion, and that’s most infuriating on those last-minute kind of amendments that are not connected to the budget,” Turcer said.
Lawmakers now are putting the finishing touches on a $75 billion, 3,300-plus-page state budget. Besides funding the state government, the current version also imposes new restrictions on abortion, allows companies to fire employees who are medical marijuana patients, eliminates quality ratings for daycares and effectively raises property taxes on many low-income housing projects that receive federal subsidies, among dozens of other new policies.
State Sen. Matt Dolan, a Chagrin Falls Republican who’s working on a committee finalizing the budget, refused to say what provisions may remain, since negotiations are ongoing.
But he said state budget bills give lawmakers wider latitude to pass bills stuffed with diverse topics.
“A lot of issues relate to the funding and the spending of revenues in budgets, so when you say ‘the single-subject rule in the budget,’ you really have to be far off,” Dolan said. “Because if it’s funded by state dollars, it’s related to the budget because it ultimately impacts the spreadsheet.”
Brad Hughes, an attorney with Porter Wright who leads the firm’s appellate practice, said lawsuits challenging new state laws frequently invoke the single-subject rule. But he said the threshold for proving a violation is high, especially for budgeting bills, and the Ohio Supreme Court in recent years generally has given deference to lawmakers.
He said whether lawmakers regularly push the envelope on the rule is a matter of opinion, including what one views as the purpose of the rule itself.
“It is certainly common for legislation to address multiple topics,” said Hughes, who helped defend a 2017 lawsuit from cities that sought to overturn a bill challenging a pet-store licensing law that also imposed new regulations on wireless networks and restricted cities from setting a local minimum wage.
The key distinction is the test is not whether a bill contains multiple subjects, but whether a court finds a “disunity of topics,” said Amanda Martinsek, a lawyer who successfully challenged a provision in the 2019 state budget crafted specifically to help residents in a wealthy Stark County village change school districts.
For example, a state court recently struck down a law change regulating local courts that lawmakers also changed to ban texting while driving.
“In other words, application of the one-subject rule is not as simple as it sounds, and the threshold test can be quite challenging,” said Martinsek, a partner at Ulmer and Berne LLP.
But, she said, “Courts seem to give particular scrutiny to provisions changing substantive policy which are tucked into a budget bill.”
A 2004 Ohio Supreme Court opinion held that a “manifestly gross and fraudulent violation” of the single-subject rule can be invalidated. The court struck down a provision in a state budget bill that created a new private school voucher program, writing that the measure’s inclusion in the larger bill seemed “tactical” and meant to avoid controversy. The program eventually was approved as part of a separate bill.
But some Ohio Supreme Court justices more recently have argued that the rule is meant to inform the legislature, not give the courts ammunition to strike down laws.
Here are some recent cases in which courts have ruled that new state laws violate the single-subject rule. Most of them were eventually overturned.
2020 – Helping a wealthy community change school districts
In September 2020, a federal judge struck down a provision in the 2019 state budget that made it easier for residents in Hills and Dales, an affluent village in Stark County, to withdraw from their current school district and change to a nearby one.
The community had spent years trying to change districts, but had been blocked by the state education department, which ruled allowing it to change from a more racially diverse district to a less diverse one was racially discriminatory. So lawmakers inserted it as a late, little-understood change in the larger state budget.
U.S. District Judge Michael H. Watson in his written ruling offered a scathing assessment of the legislature and offered a robust interpretation of the single-subject rule.
Watson, a 2004 appointee of then-President George W. Bush, wrote that the school transfer language “has no discernible, practical, rational or legitimate relationship to the state budget, and therefore, its inclusion in the same violates the one-subject rule.” He also said the manner in which it was passed appeared to be intended to prevent public debate over a controversial topic.
Watson in his written ruling extensively cited the 2004 Ohio Supreme Court ruling striking down the school-voucher law.
The state initially appealed the ruling, but decided not to defend the law, which legislators were seeking to repeal anyway.
Martinsek, the attorney who represented Plain local schools, said based on her case and the 2004 school voucher case, “it may be becoming more common” for lawmakers to push the limits of or violate the single-subject rule.
2017 – Wireless regulations and local minimum wage laws
Multiple Ohio cities sued in 2017 after lawmakers amended a bill imposing licensing requirements on pet stores, adding language meant to block Cleveland and other cities from setting a $15 minimum wage, and restricting how cities can regulate cell towers and telecommunications equipment.
Judges in Franklin, Hamilton, Cuyahoga and Lucas struck the law down as unconstitutional, determining laws regulating minimum wages, cell-phone networks and pet stores were multiple subjects.
But a state appeals court overturned the lower rulings in 2019. Judges said the issue was moot, since lawmakers passed the wireless regulations in a separate bill. And they said lower courts overreached when they struck down the entire law, since the lawsuits didn’t specifically challenge the minimum wage restriction. As a result of the ruling, the local minimum wage ban is back on the books.
2013 – New abortion restrictions
The ACLU of Ohio sued in 2013, challenging new abortion restrictions in that year’s state budget, including one that barred public hospitals from entering into transfer agreements with abortion providers.
The lawsuit alleged the abortion restrictions were unrelated to funding the state government. A Lucas County judge struck the law down as a violation of the single-subject rule, and a state appeals court agreed.
But the Ohio Supreme Court in 2018 overturned the lower courts, upholding the abortion restrictions. A decision written by Republican Justices Sharon Kennedy, Pat Fischer and Pat DeWine said the lower courts erred by raising state constitutional issues.
And then-Justice Judith French, a Republican, wrote that the state law is meant to guide lawmakers, not give courts a means to strike down state laws. French wrote “at the time of the rule’s adoption, the framers of the Ohio Constitution understood the one-subject rule as a matter of legislative procedure enforced by the General Assembly, not by the judiciary.”
2012 – Workers’ compensation payments
Five injured workers sued in 2012, challenging an amendment to a state appropriations bill that changed state law so that workers who lost limbs or other body parts on the job would receive workers’ compensation benefits in weekly payments, stretching out 10 years or more, rather than a single lump sum. The spending bill contained no other measures affecting Bureau of Workers’ Compensation payments, which are funded by premiums paid by companies, rather than state tax dollars.
A state appeals court agreed with the workers, and the Ohio Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision in 2019 opted not to reconsider the case.
2013 – Banning texting while driving
Linndale and other Ohio communities sued in 2013 over a bill that banned texting while driving. The bill otherwise limited how Linndale and other communities could run mayors’ courts, and reduced the number of judges on the Youngstown Municipal Court. A state appeals court found the subjects were not related and struck down the law.
2011 – Banning local bans on trans fats
Cleveland officials sued in 2011 after a provision in that year’s state budget barred the city from banning local restaurants from selling products with trans fats.
Two years later, a state appeals court struck down the provision as violating the single-subject rule, calling it a “classic instance of impermissible logrolling.” The court’s written decision included assessing that the legislature stuffed the measure into a state budget bill to try to avoid a controversial public discussion.
2011 – Prison privatization
The Ohio Civil Service Employees Association sued over a provision in the 2011 state budget that allowed then-Gov. John Kasich’s administration to sell the Lake Erie Correctional Institution in Ashtabula County to a private operator.
A local court ruled against the lawsuit, but an appeals court ordered a hearing to determine whether the provision violated the single-subject rule.
The Ohio Supreme Court threw out the lawsuit in 2016, with five Republican justices writing the “prison-sale provisions are rationally related to budgeting for the operation of the state government,” since it was meant to raise money.
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