Supreme Court allows Ohio, other state voter purges
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can clean up their voting rolls by targeting people who haven't cast ballots in a while.
The justices rejected, by a 5-4 vote Monday, arguments in a case from Ohio that the practice violates a federal law intended to increase the ranks of registered voters. A handful of other states also use voters' inactivity to trigger a process that could lead to their removal from the voting rolls.
Justice Samuel Alito said for the court that Ohio is complying with the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. He was joined by his four conservative colleagues. The four liberal justices dissented.
Partisan fights over ballot access are being fought across the country. Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to suppress votes from minorities and poorer people who tend to vote for Democrats. Republicans have argued that they are trying to promote ballot integrity and prevent voter fraud.
Under Ohio rules, registered voters who fail to vote in a two-year period are targeted for eventual removal from registration rolls, even if they haven't moved and remain eligible. The state said it only uses the disputed process after first comparing its voter lists with a U.S. postal service list of people who have reported a change of address. But not everyone who moves notifies the post office, the state said.
So the state asks people who haven't voted in two years to confirm their eligibility. If they do, or if they show up to vote over the next four years, voters remain registered. If they do nothing, their names eventually fall off the list of registered voters.
"Combined with the two years of nonvoting before notice is sent, that makes a total of six years of nonvoting before removal," Alito wrote.
Justice Stephen Breyer, writing in dissent, said the 1993 law prohibits removing someone from the voting rolls "by reason of the person's failure to vote. In my view, Ohio's program does just that."
In a separate dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said Congress enacted the voter registration law "against the backdrop of substantial efforts by states to disenfranchise low-income and minority voters." The court's decision essentially endorses "the very purging that Congress expressly sought to protect against," Sotomayor wrote.
Civil rights groups said the court should be focused on making it easier for people to vote, not allowing states to put up roadblocks to casting ballots.
"With the midterm election season now underway, the court's ruling demands heightened levels of vigilance as we anticipate that officials will read this ruling as a green light for loosely purging the registration rolls in their community," said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
Condemned killer of boy, 9, loses U.S. Supreme Court appeal
HOUSTON (AP) - The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review the appeal of a Houston man on death row for the 1992 slaying of a 9-year-old boy.
The justices offered no comment Monday in rejecting the case of 58-year-old Perry Allen Austin.
Austin was serving a 30-year term for sexual assault on a child when he pleaded guilty in April 2002 to capital murder for injecting David Kazmouz with a pain killer and then slitting the boy's throat. His skeletal remains were found in Houston in 1993. Austin confessed in 2001.
Attorneys have argued in appeals he wasn't mentally competent to plead guilty. Prosecutors described Austin as a drug courier for a Houston street gang.
He volunteered for execution, then changed his mind a week before his scheduled punishment in 2003.
High court OKs retroactive application of Minn. divorce law
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is siding with a man's children over his ex-wife in a dispute about who should get more than $180,000 in life insurance proceeds.
The justices ruled on Monday in a case involving the breakup of Mark Sveen and Kaye Melin. When the Minnesota residents divorced in 2007 they didn't specify who should be the beneficiary of his life insurance policy.
A 2002 Minnesota law says that when a couple divorces, the ex-spouse gets automatically removed as the life insurance beneficiary.
But after Sveen's 2011 death Melin argued she should get the money, not Sveen's two children from a previous marriage. Melin argued the law couldn't apply to the policy because it was purchased before the law was written. The Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against her.
Supreme Court tie favors Indian tribes in Washington state
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is leaving in place a court order that forces Washington state to restore salmon habitat by removing barriers that block fish migration.
The justices divided 4-4 Monday in the long-running dispute that pits the state against Indian tribes and the federal government.
The tie serves to affirm a lower court ruling in favor of the tribes. Justice Anthony Kennedy stepped aside from the case because he participated in an earlier stage of it when he served on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
At issue is whether Washington state must fix or replace hundreds of culverts. Those are large pipes that allow streams to pass beneath roads but can block migrating salmon if they become clogged or if they're too steep to navigate.
Supreme Court won't get involved in Wrigley Field dispute
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court is leaving in place a court decision dismissing a lawsuit filed against the Chicago Cubs by the owners of rooftop clubs adjacent to Wrigley Field.
Skybox on Sheffield and Lakeview Baseball Club sued the Cubs in 2015, arguing in part that a right-field video board the team was adding would block their views of the ballpark and violate terms of a 2004 revenue-sharing agreement.
A federal judge dismissed the case. Judge Virginia Kendall said the board was allowed because the agreement allowed "any expansion of Wrigley Field approved by governmental authorities."
A three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in September upheld the decision to dismiss the case. The Supreme Court declined Monday to hear the case, leaving the lower court decisions in place.
U.S. Supreme Court won't hear South Carolina churches case
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - The nation's highest court has refused to hear a case from South Carolina churches upset with The Episcopal Church over a decision concerning ownership of property.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a request from the Diocese of South Carolina to reverse a decision by the South Carolina Supreme Court. Last year, the court ruled that the national denomination owns the church property.
Protesting churches left the national church in 2012 citing concerns about theological issues including the ordination of gay priests.
The Episcopal Church says it's governed by its own laws and rules. It says people are free to leave the church if they disagree but cannot take church property with them.
The U.S. Supreme Court historically refuses to hear such cases.
Published: Tue, Jun 12, 2018
