The Ohio Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments as part of a lawsuit against private school vouchers in the state, to decide whether or not Senate President Matt Huffman needs to answer questions on the topic.
The court announced on Tuesday that it would take up the case, in which Huffman is asking to avoid answering questions related to the state’s private school voucher program challenge taking place in the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas.
Huffman appealed to the high court in April, invoking Article 11 of the Ohio Constitution, which states during a session of the General Assembly, senators and representatives are protected from treason, felony, or breach of the peace, “and for any speech, or debate, in either house, they shall not be questioned elsewhere.”
“This appeal raises significant – and, to date, unanswered – questions about the scope of the constitutional protections provided to the Ohio General Assembly’s members that ‘for any speech, or debate, in either house, they shall not be questioned elsewhere,’ which is commonly referred to as the Speech and Debate Clause,” Columbus attorney Mark D. Wagoner wrote on behalf of Huffman.
Huffman was one of many parties asked to participate in a deposition or answer questions about the program and its funding. The Senate president was subpoenaed – and is now fighting the subpoena – for an April 2023 deposition “on his knowledge of school funding in Ohio and his involvement in the enactment and expansion of the EdChoice program.”
The case for which Huffman doesn’t want to provide a deposition is an effort to eliminate the private school voucher program in the state, a program that provides subsidies for public school students enrolled in what are considered by the state to be underperforming schools, allowing those students to attend private schools, often religiously affiliated.
Huffman was Senate president when when the budget bill that included the private voucher expansion was passed in 2021.
The program and its most recent expansion have been criticized for taking funding out of public school coffers, funding higher income white students more than the original program’s goal to assist lower income students and minorities, and violating the state constitution which requires the state to properly fund a system of public schools throughout Ohio.
In December of last year, Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Jaiza Page said Huffman did not need to submit to the in-person deposition, but instead could answer questions “that do not implicate legislative privilege” in a written form.
The judge ruled that the legislative privilege Huffman argued didn’t extend to everything done or related to a legislative process, “but attaches only to meetings, processes, conversations and documents which are an integral part of the deliberative and communicative process by which legislators participate in legislative or committee proceedings.”
Page also said if the written deposition demonstrated “that an in-person oral deposition of Huffman is likely to provide additional information,” the judge would reconsider the written deposition order.
Huffman appealed to the Tenth District Court of Appeals in January of this year, asking to be released from the order for written deposition answers, citing the same “legislative testimonial privilege” in the Speech and Debate Clause.
The appellate court dismissed Huffman’s appeal in March, saying the lower court’s order “permits (voucher challengers) to submit questions but stops short of compelling (Huffman) to answer.”
The appellate decision said Huffman could again sue on legislative privilege grounds after the questions were submitted to him, “and the trial court will have the opportunity to review (Huffman’s) concerns in the context of the questions being posed.”
In his appeal to the state supreme court, Huffman’s attorney said “the importance of this language is clear.”
“The Speech and Debate Clause does not require President Huffman to jump through the additional hoops suggested by the Tenth District Court of Appeals,” the appeal stated.
Justice Michael Donnelly, Melody Stewart and Jennifer Brunner all voted against accepting the case. Ninth District Court of Appeals Judge Jill Flagg Lanzinger sat in for Justice Joe Deters.
The court will now set deadlines for documents to be submitted to the court, and oral arguments will be scheduled in the case.
