(The Center Square) – A federal court struck down part of an Ohio bill that passed during a special session called to pass legislation to ensure President Joe Biden would have been on the November ballot.
While Democrats never nominated Biden, a ban on foreign campaign money contributed to ballot initiatives in the state was signed into law.
On Saturday, a federal court, however, said the ban violates the First Amendment rights of non-U.S. citizens living in the country legally. The law was scheduled to take effect Sunday.
The law passed along party lines in the Republican-majority House and Senate during a May special session called by Gov. Mike DeWine. It was the first special session in Ohio in a decade.
“Ohio Republicans’ supermajority is drunk on power and hell-bent on rigging the rules against citizen-led ballot initiatives, even if it means likely violating the First Amendment and trampling our most fundamental American freedom,” said House Minority Leader Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington. “I applaud this court’s ruling and am confident freedom and the rule of law will prevail over continued political attacks on Ohioans’ right to change their government and decide the issues that matter most.”
U.S. District Court Judge Michael Watson said in his ruling that if lawful permanent residents can serve in the military, they should be able to make political contributions.
“If the U.S. Federal Government trusts LPRs [lawful permanent residents] to put U.S. interests first in the military (of all places), how could this Court hold that it does not trust them to promote U.S. interests in their political spending? It cannot,” Watson wrote.
The law changed the state’s campaign finance law to ban foreign nationals from donating to state ballot issue campaigns even before the issues have been cleared to be on the ballot. It was amended in the House to include a ban on immigrants in the country legally with a green card.
Secretary of State Frank LaRose called the new law necessary to close a campaign finance loophole in state law. Foreign money was banned from individual campaigns but wasn’t banned for potential ballot issues.
The same law extended the deadline for political parties to nominate a person for president during this election year. At the time, it allowed Democrats to nominate President Joe Biden without a virtual roll call.
Later, Biden dropped out of the race, and Democrats nominated Vice President Kamala Harris in a virtual roll call vote before the party convention last month.