Easy call for Supreme Court

Easy call for Supreme Court

Voters in 130 cities and villages in Ohio have spoken again and again, saying the same thing each time: They want the public employees whose salaries they pay to be part of the community. They want their police and fire and street workers to live where they work.

The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed that cities have the right to demand residency of their employees. The court has said that people have a right to live wherever they want, but the don’t have a right to a job in Youngstown or Warren or Cleveland.

Every city worker knew when taking a job that residency was a condition of employment. They knew that if they didn’t live in the city when they were hired, they would have to move there within a specified period. They knew that if they moved out of the city, they were breaking a contract and they were subject to dismissal.

Ask the voters

The public employee unions also knew that if they wanted their members to have the ability to live wherever they wanted, they had to convince their voters that a residency law was a bad idea.

Instead, the unions went to the Ohio General Assembly and managed to put together a coalition of Democratic legislators who were beholden to the unions and a handful of Republicans with libertarian leanings. The state legislature passed a law outlawing local residency requirements.

Knowing that neither the U.S. nor Ohio constitution gave municipal employees a right to a job, the legislature based its new law on the broadest possible reading of an Ohio constitutional provision that gives the legislature responsibility for promoting the general welfare of employees.

The issue was argued before the Ohio Supreme Court last week. The court appeared to be split on the issue. It shouldn’t be. The court should be able to easily return a ruling supporting the right of voters to make reasonable demands on employees being paid with local tax dollars. The Ohio House and Senate had no business injecting themselves into the residency debate.