Ohio Supreme Court to consider red-light camera case
Feb. 6—COLUMBUS — The city of Toledo will watch closely on Wednesday as the Ohio Supreme Court takes up the question of whether state lawmakers can financially punish cities that insist on operating automated speed and red-light cameras.
The Cuyahoga County municipalities of Newburgh Heights and East Cleveland argue that the Republican-controlled General Assembly went too far when it passed a law to essentially take back much of what cities collect in fines for violations caught by the cameras.
The provision added to the last state transportation budget in 2019 violates the cities' constitutional home-rule authority of local self-governance, they contend. Cleveland's Eighth District Court of Appeals sided with the cities.
Toledo has made the same arguments and has said a decision against the city would essentially kill the program by making it too expensive to run. Lucas County Common Pleas Court sided with the city, but that case hasn't worked its way up to the high court yet.
The state counters that the law does not stand in the way of cities like Toledo and Dayton that run such programs, despite obstacles lawmakers have continually tried to throw in their path. The law, however, does prevent them from making money off them by withholding enough of their Local Government Fund revenue to offset the fines imposed.
Although the law would not do so outright, the cities contend that this marks the General Assembly's third attempt to kill such programs—after the court intervened the first two times. The law would adversely affect the cities' ability to protect the health and safety of the public, they argue.
"Traffic cameras eliminate the need for officers to have face-to-face interactions with offending motorists and have the dual benefit of lessening both officers' and motorists' potential exposure to COVID-19 as well as lessening the opportunity for any confrontations between police and motorists," reads a brief filed by Toledo, Dayton, and the Ohio Municipal League.
The cities contend that lawmakers would set the stage for future end-runs around home rule through the state's purse strings rather than a frontal attack. In addition to the financial penalty, the law requires cities to pay advance deposits to cover court costs and fees for civil appeals of citations issued through the program, regardless of who is victorious in the appeal.
"...(N)either the spending setoff not the deposit requirement limit the municipalities' police power," Attorney General Dave Yost's office contends in defense of the law. "True, both might discourage municipalities from adopting traffic-camera programs by making the programs less profitable than they would be otherwise."
The village of Newburgh Heights began using speed enforcement cameras in 2014 while the city of East Cleveland has used both speed and red-light enforcement since 2006.
While voters in some other cities forced the repeal of such programs, East Cleveland voters approved its program in 2011.
Toledo was bringing in roughly $7 million a year before the cameras were suspended in 2020 after a Supreme Court ruling striking down its administrative hearing appeals process. The state would offset the entire amount of fines collected and would not take into consideration whether cities like Toledo pay a portion of the fines to a private camera operator.
The Supreme Court twice previously held that direct legislative barriers thrown up in the path of camera programs unconstitutionally infringed upon cities' home-rule authority. But this time is different because the case involves the state's authority to make spending decisions.
"...(T)he Ohio Constitution permits the General Assembly to encourage that which it cannot require," the state argues. "It also permits the General Assembly to achieve in one way that which it cannot achieve in another."
