Municipal residency fight goes to Ohio Supreme Court

Municipal residency fight goes to Ohio Supreme Court

More than two years after an odd mix of labor-indebted Democrats and Republicans espousing libertarian values told city residents throughout Ohio that they don’t have the right to require the people they hire to live in the cities they serve, the Ohio Supreme Court will have the last word.

Some Common Pleas courts have upheld the General Assembly’s law banning most local residency requirements. But three separate appeals courts have now ruled that lawmakers in Columbus overreached when they decided that their authority to provide for the ‘’general welfare’’ of employees in the state trumps a city’s right to require its employees to live where they work.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear appeals filed by public employee unions over rulings by the 9th District Court of Appeals, which sided with Akron, and the 3rd District Court of Appeals, which sided with Lima. Both cities maintained that their charters, which include residency requirements, are constitutionally valid and not subject to being overruled by state legislators.

In the weeks since the Supreme Court agreed to hear those cases, the 8th District Court of Appeals ruled that Cleveland’s residency requirement is a “valid exercise of its home-rule powers under the Ohio Constitution.” Cleveland unions are expected to ask the Supreme Court to add that case to its docket.

The state law overturning residency requirements is being challenged by large and small cities across the state, including Youngstown and Warren. Some townships also have required their public employees to live within the jurisdiction.

The voters spoke

In many cases, such as in Youngstown, residency requirements have been voted on by the citizens and require a person being hired to live in the city at the time of hiring or to establish and maintain residency within a reasonable time.

An applicant for a city job clearly knows that residency is a condition of employment and has the option of taking the job or not taking it. As a political subdivision, a city has an obvious interest in wanting hundreds of well-paid employees living in its neighborhoods and being part of the community. City voters have a right to demand that the people a city hires have a commitment to the city.

In the past, the Ohio Supreme Court has upheld Ohio’s status as an at-will employment state, meaning that any employer can dismiss any employee with or without cause, as long as the firing doesn’t violate a specific employment contract or state or federal anti-discrimination laws. The justices, it would seem, will open the principle of at-will employment to other attacks if the Supreme Court finds that cities don’t have the ability to establish and enforce employment rules. Of course, many of those same legislators — especially those of a libertarian nature — who voted to hamstring cities in their employment practices would fight tooth-and-nail to protect the at-will prerogative of private employers. Consistency and politics often don’t mix.

The passion of employees claiming a right to live where they want, the money that public employee unions are willing to spend on these cases, the obligation of the state attorney general to defend state law, the need for cities to protect their employment options and defend the decisions made by voters at the ballot box — all these conflicting forces will make for as much drama as one can expect at the Ohio Supreme Court.

And that’s where it will end, because this is purely a state issue. The Supreme Court of the United States long ago ruled that municipal residency requirements are constitutional.