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Columbus Dispatch
Chief justice says state still not in compliance on school funding
By Catherine Candisky
June 4, 2013 

Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor says state lawmakers have failed to fix the way public schools are financed since the high court in 2002 issued its last of four rulings that the funding system was unconstitutional. 

“I don’t think it’s changed,” O’Connor said yesterday when asked during a meeting with The Dispatch editorial board about the General Assembly’s response to the DeRolph decision. 

“I’m waiting like everyone else to see what the legislature and the governor are going to do with it.” 

As she pushes to improve how judges are selected, O’Connor said judges and judicial candidates should feel free to discuss their philosophies and opinions on such current topics as school funding or abortion or capital punishment. But she said they should steer clear of commenting about specific legislation or situations that could come before them on the court. 

O’Connor did not decide the DeRolph case, joining the court as an associate justice just weeks after it was decided, but she said she is frequently asked about it. 

“I’ve often explained to people who say: ‘Why hasn’t the Supreme Court done anything? It’s still unconstitutional, and the legislature has not come up with a constitutional fix.’ And I say, there is no case in front of the court ... we can’t resurrect a case to bring it before us.” 

The Ohio Supreme Court first declared the funding system unconstitutional in 1997, calling for a “systematic overhaul” because of an overreliance on local property taxes that generated unequal revenue among the state’s 614 school districts. 

O’Connor limited her comments to the decision and the legislative response, declining to discuss a funding formula currently being negotiated by Republican leaders in the House and Senate. 

About four months after she took office as an associate justice, O’Connor concurred with DeRolph in a 5-2 ruling that said, “The duty now lies with the General Assembly to remedy an educational system that has been found by the majority in DeRolph IV (the court’s previous decision, in December) to still be unconstitutional.” 

O’Connor was elected chief justice in 2010. 

Last week, as Senate Republicans laid out a revamped funding plan to replace one the House used to replace one proposed by Gov. John Kasich, Senate President Keith Faber, R-Celina, said the new setup would be “absolutely constitutional… 

Read the rest of the article at the Columbus Dispatch



 
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