The Buckeye Institute’s newest client, John Ream, and his case to overturn the federal ban on home distilling is featured in The Newark Advocate. “What would a victory for the Reams mean? ‘It would be big for our client,’ Alt said. ‘So, he could experiment with home distilling. And it would establish a larger principle: There are limits to Congressional authority. It would have national implications.’”
The Buckeye Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of John Ream of Licking County, Ohio, asking the court to overturn the federal government’s ban on the home distilling of spirit beverages, arguing that this ban exceeds Congressional authority under Article I of the U.S. Constitution and violates the Tenth Amendment. Ream v. U.S. Department of Treasury was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division.
The Buckeye Institute filed an amicus brief in West v. Cincinnati urging Ohio’s First District Court of Appeals to uphold the lower court’s ruling that correctly interpreted the constitutionality of the state’s preemption law. While noting that there are legitimate debates about policies requiring firearm handling and storage techniques, The Buckeye Institute argues in its brief that this case is about Ohio’s firearms preemption law, which the Ohio Supreme Court found to be constitutional in Cleveland v. Ohio.
The Buckeye Institute filed an amicus brief in Garland v. Cargill with the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that courts must interpret criminal statutes narrowly, with leniency towards the accused. Known as the rule of lenity, this strict level of review protects Americans from criminal punishment that Congress did not specify. “With the stroke of a pen, unelected federal bureaucrats at the ATF turned more than 500,000 Americans into criminals. Something only Congress has the authority to do.”
The Buckeye Institute commented on the newly released jobs report from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, noting that while “Ohio ended 2023 on a slightly down note…2023 was a good year for Ohio workers overall. The state started the year with an unemployment rate of 4.1 percent—almost half a percent higher than the current rate, and for much of 2023, Ohio’s job market outpaced the national average.”
In The Wall Street Journal, The Buckeye Institute’s senior legal fellow Andrew M. Grossman argues that now is the time for the Supreme Court of the United States to end the misguided doctrine of Chevron deference, through which the courts defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of “ambiguous” statutes. Buckeye filed an amicus brief in support of federal courts reclaiming their proper role as interpreter of laws—ambiguous or otherwise.
The Buckeye Institute filed an amicus brief in National Rifle Association v. Vullo, calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to stop government officials in New York from threatening—or “jawboning”—businesses that the state regulates from working with the National Rifle Association (NRA). As Andrew M. Grossman, a senior legal fellow at The Buckeye Institute, and David B. Rivkin Jr. wrote in The Wall Street Journal, New York’s “goal was to punish the NRA for its gun-rights advocacy.”
In a new policy memo, A Transformational Investment: Use Ohio’s Capital Budget to Increase Classroom Space, The Buckeye Institute urges Ohio lawmakers to “create a permanent revolving loan fund to increase student capacity at schools across Ohio—a vital need given the Ohio EdChoice program’s success and recent expansion.” Using the One-Time Strategic Community Investments Fund to “improve the state’s education infrastructure” will make “transformational investments in education.”
The Buckeye Institute released a new policy brief, A Sandbox for Everything: A Universal Approach to Help Innovators, urging Ohio lawmakers to cut more regulatory red tape and “expand Ohio’s ‘regulatory sandbox’ to include all industries.” The brief outlines three improvements Ohio policymakers can take to cut more regulations and attract more innovators to the Buckeye State. “By expanding its regulatory sandbox and leading the way in creating a state-to-federal sandbox reciprocity program, Ohio will remain competitive in the innovation race.”
The Buckeye Institute filed an amicus brief with the Ohio Supreme Court in Trumbull County v. Purdue Pharma (National Prescription Opiate Litigation), arguing that awarding the government monetary damages as punishment for a public nuisance is not allowed under Ohio law. “The opioid epidemic is a tragedy that has destroyed and damaged lives across Ohio and the country. And it is appropriate, even necessary, for the courts to hold those who committed illegal acts accountable.”
