Posted 27 Jun 2023 in Case Notes Written by: Amanda Karras

Today, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Moore v. Harper, the long-anticipated case involving the so-called Independent State Legislature Theory (ISLT) advanced by the North Carolina legislature.  The Court rejected the ISLT and held that the Federal Elections Clause “does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review.”  Though the foregoing statement sounds ordinary, the ramifications for local governments had the ISLT been adopted would have been anything but. Following the 2020 census the North Carolina...

Posted 26 Jun 2023 in Case Notes Written by: Amanda Karras

On June 23rd, in United States v. Hansen, the Supreme Court interpreted the terms “encourages” and “induces” in 8 U.S.C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) narrowly and upheld the statute’s constitutionality.  While the decision was technically a loss for the position advocated by IMLA, by narrowly interpreting the scope of the statute, many (though not all) of the concerns that local governments had regarding the case are likely mitigated. At issue in this case was an overbreadth challenge to 8 U.S.C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(iv), which prohibits “encourage[ing]...

Posted 15 Jun 2023 in Business Written by: Amanda Karras

The International Municipal Lawyers Association (IMLA) is pleased to announce the inaugural IMLA DeWitt F. “Mac” McCarley Scholarship (McCarley Scholarship).  The Scholarship is named in honor of Mac McCarley who was the City Attorney for Charlotte, NC from 1994 to 2011 and then went into private practice as a partner at Parker Poe where he continued to focus on municipal law.  Mac has been practicing municipal law since 1977 and he continues to this day as the town attorney for...

Posted 30 May 2023 in Case Notes Written by: Erich Eiselt

On May 25, 2023, the Supreme Court released its highly anticipated decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, a case again construing the meaning of “waters of the United States.” The decision in favor of the petitioners was unanimous, but the underlying analyses varied widely. The case arose when Michael and Chantell Sackett began backfilling a housing lot near Priest Lake, Idaho. According to the EPA, this violated the Clean Water Act, which prohibits discharging pollutants including gravel into “navigable waters,”...

Posted 25 May 2023 in Case Notes Written by: Amanda Karras

Today, in a unanimous opinion, the Supreme Court concluded that Hennepin County violated the Takings Clause by keeping the surplus equity in a condominium that it sold after the homeowner failed to pay her property taxes (and failed to regain title to that property pursuant to state law).  The Taking occurred not with the sale of the property for failure to pay property taxes or when the County kept the tax debt (including interest and penalties), but rather, the County...

Posted 18 May 2023 in Case Notes Written by: Erich Eiselt

Do states have the authority to regulate how long trains can stop at grade crossings?  That, in essence, is the question being presented in a recent petition for Supreme Court certiorari by the State of Ohio in its action against railroad behemoth CSX. Filed in November 2022, the petition  arises after the Ohio Supreme Court, in a divided opinion in State of Ohio v. CSX Transportation, Inc., no. 2020-6038 (Ohio Aug. 17, 2022), held that federal law preempts such action...

Posted 15 May 2023 in Case Notes Written by: Amanda Karras

Last week, in a win for local governments, the Supreme Court rejected an overly expansive view of the dormant Commerce Clause in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross.  Justice Gorsuch, writing for the majority, declined the pork producers’ arguments which would have “fashion[ed] two new and more aggressive constitutional restrictions on the ability of States [and local governments] to regulate goods sold within their borders.” As he pithily put it, “[w]hile the Constitution addresses many weighty issues, the type of...

Posted 02 May 2023 in Case Notes Written by: Erich Eiselt

Tyler v. Hennepin County, no. 22-166 (US 2023) Background: This case involves a challenge to Minnesota’s statutory property foreclosure scheme. The Plaintiff stopped paying taxes on her Hennepin County condominium in 2010 and for three years thereafter failed to respond to delinquency notices. Subsequently, she did not take advantage of any of the multiple additional avenues that Minnesota law provides to redeem her property or to protect her equity interest. She even apparently went so far as to tell the County...

Posted 25 Apr 2023 in Commentary Written by: Amanda Karras

During the IMLA Seminar on Friday, 4/21 Amy Howe, a prominent Supreme Court reporter predicted that the Supreme Court could grant two important First Amendment social media cases as early as Monday, 4/24, which is exactly what happened.  The cases are Lindke v. Freed and O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier, and they involve almost identical issues: Whether an elected official violates the First Amendment by blocking someone from their social media account where that account purports to be personal in nature (though...

Posted 21 Apr 2023 in Business Written by: Caroline Storer

IMLA’s amicus program is very busy and has had a successful year – filed over 30 briefs in the last year. Most of the cases below are pending cases but we’ve had notable wins as well.  As a reminder, the Supreme Court accepts cert in only about 1% of cases, so denial of cert can be due to many reasons and in each of our cases we were exceptionally well represented. We can only enjoy this success and help our members out...