Can the state tell cities they can’t ban certain things, or do cities have the power to do that under home rule? The Ohio Supreme Court heard arguments on that from a lawsuit filed against the state by 21 cities over their attempts to ban sales of flavored tobacco and vapes.
In 2022, Republican lawmakers had passed House Bill 513, banning municipalities from banning flavored tobacco and vapes. Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed it. Then lawmakers put that provision into the state budget a year later, and DeWine vetoed it again. In 2024, lawmakers overrode him. That statewide ban on local bans sparked a lawsuit by 21 cities against the state.
In arguments before the court on Tuesday, Deputy Solicitor General Zachery Keller said the statewide ban on local bans is a general law, and cities can pass laws that don’t conflict with general laws that affect everyone. He said it was assumed cities didn't have the power to do anything unless the General Assembly gave them that authority before 1912, but that was the year voters approved the Home Rule amendment.
"They were trying to flip that presumption and say municipalities as a default have not have power. But the state still gets to come in and say when it thinks the municipalities have gone too far," Keller said. "[The]
Home Rule amendment was never supposed to be this weapon that cities used to overturn state law."
But Richard Coglianese, representing the cities, said the state can't pass laws that are meant only to restrict municipalities. He said this statewide ban does, so it's not a general law. And he said cities fear the state could define any law as a general law that cities can’t change.
"How in the world are we dealing with a situation where the General Assembly can simply say municipalities can't pass laws?" Coglianese said. "By trying to say 'general law' means just it's a law passed by the General Assembly, that becomes a a situation where the Home Rule amendment is utterly meaningless because the General Assembly can always say you can't pass a law, or this is a matter of statewide importance."
The case has gotten attention from statewide and national groups. The Ohio Council of Retail Merchants, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Grocers Association and the National Shooting Sports Foundation filed friend-of-the-court briefs to support the state's argument for the statewide ban on local bans. Filing in support of the cities are the Ohio Mayors Alliance, the Ohio Municipal Attorneys Association, the NAACP and a dozen health-oriented groups such as the American Heart Association, the American Medical Association and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
In 2010 the court upheld the state's preemption law banning cities from regulating guns, but lawsuits over that go on. A lawsuit against a statewide ban on local plastic bag bans filed by the city of Athens was dropped before it got to the high court.
