Columbus, OH – On Thursday, The Buckeye Institute filed its fourth amicus brief with the Ohio Supreme Court in Bowling v. DeWine, urging the court to affirm, once and for all, that Ohio’s Cooperation Statute does not require the governor to accept federal money every time it is offered.

“Ohio’s Cooperation Statute does not command that Governor DeWine accept every federal dime offered,” said Jay R. Carson, senior litigator at The Buckeye Institute. “In Bowling v. DeWine, the Ohio Supreme Court has the opportunity to rein in the Tenth District’s judicial overreach and end this judicial fiscal mandate.”

In its brief, The Buckeye Institute argues that Ohio’s Cooperation Statute is crystal clear. It states that nothing “precludes the director from ceasing to participate in any voluntary, optional, special, or emergency program offered by the federal government.” Furthermore, the Tenth District Court of Appeals’ misguided ruling—which relies on a statute that the General Assembly repealed—poses a substantial threat to the state’s constitutional order.

In its first amicus brief, The Buckeye Institute urged the Ohio Supreme Court to hear the case. After the court accepted the case, Buckeye filed a second amicus brief arguing that the governor had the authority to withdraw Ohio from the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation Program. In November 2022, the Ohio Supreme Court dismissed Bowling v. DeWine as moot, but did not provide lower courts with clarity on why it did so. Exploiting this ambiguity, Bowling went back to court, and both the trial court and Ohio’s Tenth District Court of Appeals ruled in Bowling’s favor, overlooking the fact that in the intervening period the Ohio General Assembly revised the Cooperation Statute to make it clear that the governor is not required to accept federal money any time it is offered. In its third amicus brief, The Buckeye Institute once again called on the Ohio Supreme Court to hear the case.

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