Ding, dong, DeRolph is dead, but don't bet it won't be back

The Ohio Supreme Court has stripped any further jurisdiction in the DeRolph case from the common pleas court in which the suit originated and has declared an end to further litigation.
But if the DeRolph case is over, as some have claimed, it is over in name only. The legacy of DeRolph remains. That legacy includes a commitment by the state to spend enormous amounts of money to construct new school buildings, because unequal and inadequate facilities was one of the linchpins of the DeRolph suit. The legacy also includes this: Ohio's system of funding its schools is unconstitutional, declared so by the court, and there is no evidence that the General Assembly has taken action that would remedy the system's constitutional shortcomings.
A 12-year journey
The suit was filed in December 1991 by the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy of School Funding in Perry County Common Pleas Court and took the name of Nathan DeRolph, a student in the Northern Local School District.
Two and a half years later, Judge Linton Lewis Jr. declared the state system of financing education unconstitutional. The 5th Ohio District Court of Appeals in Canton overturned Lewis' ruling, but in March 1997, the Ohio Supreme Court sided with Lewis and declared school funding system unconstitutional.
An initial attempt to wean the state from local property taxes, which were at the heart of the funding disparity for schools, by enacting a statewide 1 percent income tax for education was rejected by voters in 1998.
Since then, the state has tried to jury-rig a system that would pass constitutional muster without addressing the property tax issue. It has failed.
The supreme court should have stepped in years ago, but didn't. The most dramatic action it could have taken would have been to hold the General Assembly, or at least its leadership, in contempt. Slightly less provocative, but probably more fun, would have been an injunction barring the state from issuing checks to the legislators, based on a lack of job performance.
But for a variety of reasons, the same court that found the state's method of funding education unconstitutional chose not to precipitate a constitutional crisis in the enforcement of that finding.
But the fact remains that the state is operating under a system that has been declared unconstitutional, and it is only a matter of time until those who believe strongly about the issue of education in Ohio act on that.
What might be next
What form that challenge will take is yet to be seen. Perhaps it will come when the General Assembly passes its next biennial budget. Perhaps it will take the form of a mandamus action asking a court to compel the General Assembly to fund education in a manner that is constitutional.
At that point, the burden of proof will fall to the General Assembly. As of today, the highest court in the state stands by its finding that educational funding in Ohio is unconstitutional.
Of course, some faces have changed on the court. One of education's most stalwart defenders, Justice Andy Douglas, has retired. Millions have been spent on election campaigns by candidates who declared themselves to be less activist -- whatever that means -- than some incumbent justices.
But it would be a sad day for the court and for Ohio if the DeRolph ruling were overturned on a party line vote with no evidence that the constitutional issues raised by the case had been addressed. While supreme court justices are elected in this state, the Ohio Constitution deserves better than to be treated as a partisan trophy.