Should Courts Analyze Voter Intent as a Way to Determine the Intent of City Officials?

Fair Housing Rules, meet the Referendum Process

Cuyahoga Falls v. Buckeye Community Hope Foundation

Decided March 25 No. 01-1269

At issue: the Buckeye Community Hope Foundation and their city permit to build low income housing in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Locals, expressing the classic "anywhere but here" position,  embraced the democratic process and voted to nix the plan. The permit was (temporarily) rescinded. The state supreme court decided that direct democracy can not cancel out a city approved building permit: permission to build is an administrative, not legislative, decision, and none of the voters' business.

Not taking any chances, the Buckeye Foundation also sued the city in federal court, arguing that the voter initiative was racially (and anti-family) motivated and thus in violation of Fair Housing rules and constitutional guarantees of equal protection.  The Sixth Circuit agreed, ruling that judges can and should inquire into the motives of voters to determine the intent of city officials.  After peering into the hearts and minds of Cuyahoga Falls voters, the court found reason to believe they were dealing with racists--thus finding "triable issues of fact with respect to plaintiffs' equal protection, Fair Housing Act, and substantive due process claims."

The Court, taking up the equal protection and due process arguments, disagreed. In a unanimous opinion written by Justice O'Connor, the Court ruled that statements made by private individuals during a petition drive do not constitute "state action." Buckeye's equal protection claim (charging discriminatory state intent), then, has no legal basis. Justice O'Connor found the due process claim of Buckeye equally unpersuasive: there was nothing in the referendum process to suggest arbitrary government conduct. The withholding of building permits, post referendum, "represented an eminently rational directive."  

As an added bonus, Justice O'Connor posits that the public debate in Cuyahoga advances First Amendment interests (and nothing stifles a conversation quite like charges of discriminatory intent). It might have been nice to read something about the importance of local deliberation for the sake of local deliberation (First Amendment rights are nice, but so are the workings of federalism), but, considering worse alternatives, we'll take the Court's opinion.

Incidentally, a good old fashioned defense of the local police power does show up in this decision, or more accurately, in Justice Scalia's concurrence. "Freedom from delay in receiving a building permit is not among...'fundamental liberty' interests. To the contrary, the Takings Clause allows government confiscation of private property so long as it is taken for a public use and just compensation is paid; mere regulation of land use need not be 'narrowly tailored' to effectuate a 'compelling state interest.'"  

Cuyahoga Falls v. Buckeye

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