The Daily Signal - Ohio Attorney General Breaks Down Leftist Legal 'Trick' to Block GOP Efforts to Protect Kids

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is not going to allow one lone judge to dictate whether the children of Ohio are protected from “transgender” surgeries and hormones, he shared in an interview with The Daily Signal. Yost asked the state’s Supreme Court to intervene after Judge Michael Holbrook issued a temporary restraining order for House Bill 68, the Saving Ohio Adolescents From Experimentation, or SAFE, Act, on Tuesday. That law bars physicians from performing “transgender reassignment” surgeries on children and from prescribing cross-sex hormones or drugs to block children’s puberty. It also would allow students to sue if they are deprived of a fair playing field in sports due to transgender activism (such as a boy who “identifies” as a girl playing on a girls’ volleyball team) and would protect parents’ rights to raise their children according to their biological sex. A supermajority of Republican lawmakers voted to override Gov. Mike DeWine’s controversial veto of the bill in January, and before Holbrook blocked it, it was scheduled to go into effect on April 24. On Monday, Yost, the Medical Board of Ohio, and the state of Ohio filed an emergency motion for a writ of prohibition, asking that Holbrook be ordered to modify his temporary restraining order to “comply with Ohio statutory and procedural limitations.” The Ohio attorney general discussed the move and what he hopes will ensue from here in an interview with The Daily Signal. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, April 24th. I'm Mary Margaret O'Lehann, and today I'm speaking with Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost about his new filing asking the Ohio Supreme Court to intervene over an Ohio judge temporarily blocking a law protecting kids from transgender surgeries and procedures. Stay tuned for my conversation with Yost after this. So what is going on with you? Crane, what is this deal with the border? How do you feel about school choice? These are the questions that come up to conservatives sitting at parties, at dinner, at family reunions. What do you say when these questions come up? I'm Mark Geinney, the host of the podcast for you. Heritage Explains,

brought to you by all of your friends here at the Heritage Foundation. Through the creative use of stories, the knowledge of our super passionate experts, we bring you the most important policy issues of the day, and break them down in a way that is understandable. So check out Heritage Explains wherever you get your podcasts. Joining me now is Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost. Attorney General, thank you so much for joining us today. It's good to be with you. Now, you just filed an emergency motion with the Ohio Supreme Court, correct?

Yeah, you know, Ohio, like a lot of other states, has passed a law protecting children against the irrevocable decisions that are necessary to change your gender to do that surgically or through medication. And a judge last week put it on hold, not just as to the two plaintiffs in that case, but to the entire state and even on parts of the law that don't apply to these two plaintiffs. Now, let's backtrack on that a little bit because I would love if you could explain for our audience what this law is. We know that Ohio lawmakers recently pushed through the Saving Ohio Adolescence from Experimentation Act.

What exactly does that law entail? So it's got three major pieces. The first one is it says if you're under 18, you can't, we're not going to use surgery to take off body parts or to alter your body. or to use hormones or medicines to delay puberty or to change how your body reacts to that. The second piece, oh, and by the way, there's an exception in the law that if you're already using that in your under 18, the law does not make you stop. The second piece has to do with women's sports, and it says basically, if you were born a boy, you don't get to compete in girls' sports. The final piece is that it says that parents who are in divorce court or in a custody battle, that the court's not allowed to take into account in its decision-making, the parents, perhaps differing views on what the left calls gender affirming care.

Okay, so effectively it's protecting children from experimental transgender procedures and then making sure that boys, for example, aren't in girls' spaces because they identify as transgender? Exactly. Now, how is that met by critics? Well, of course, they're outraged. They want children to be able to do whatever an adult can do. But that's not the law in any state in the union. You can't buy alcohol when you're under 18. You can't enter a legally binding contract under 18. You can't vote with or without parental consent. So there's lots of decisions that we protect children against by law. because they're not grown up yet. They're not ready to make those decisions. And as long as we've had the country, and there's been laws out there, it's restricted what kids were able to do.

Right. Now, I know that Ohio lawmakers overrode the governor's veto of this legislation. But last week, Judge Michael Holbrook blocked the law, correct? He did. statewide as to all aspects. And what was his rationale? Well, he is saying because the women's sports provision is different than the medical protection provisions that the law violates the, what we call the one-subject role, I don't think

ultimately that is going to be the case. when the Supreme Court reviews this ultimately on the merits, I just don't think that that's going to be, that's not consistent with the president. And we're confident we will win on that point. Right. So your emergency motion argues that this judge acted beyond the scope of his power. Can you explain that a little more and what that means? So the statute and the rule that are involved here, they give the,

judge the power to issue an injunction at all, say that the injunction is to protect the plaintiffs, the people that are in court. It doesn't say anything about giving an authority to make a blanket ruling for 11.7 million people and basically to overrule the General Assembly's duly passed statute. So we just think he went too far. This is actually a trick that the left has been using for a long time. Go to court with a couple of sympathetic plaintiffs, get a court order restraining the law from applying to anybody anywhere, and they use it to avoid majority rule and democratic processes that we have here in America. It's contrary. of the law. It's a misuse of the judicial process, and it's fundamentally anti-democratic.

That's really interesting. And would you say that the ACLU is someone, is a group that frequently uses this strategy? Oh, yeah. All of the left-wing law firm, lawfare groups like this, You know, ACLU certainly the Randolph Institute, you name it. They all like to use this. And it's been increasingly criticized in legal circles. This is becoming a very hot topic, no universal injunctions. If you want a universal injunction, then you have to go to the class certification process and show that this ought to apply to the entire country.

And the reason that that process is hard is because laws are passed by legislators, are elected legislators and signed by our elected governors or overwritten in this case. And you're basically telling all of those people that they're not allowed to do their constitutional rules. this is a subject that is right to be decided. And I noticed that in Idaho, a very similar situation recently happened that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Can we talk about that a little bit? And is Ohio copying Idaho's strategy in a way? Well, as I say, this has been an issue that has been percolating in legal circles for the last number of years.

It's just bubbling to the surface. But we did cite that United States Supreme Court decision out of Idaho, and we're asking the Ohio Supreme Court to pay attention to it as well. Five justices wrote that the judge in Idaho had overstepped the legal authority of the office to issue a statewide injunction, and they narrowed it back down just exactly what we're asking, the Ohio. Ohio Supreme Court to do. Okay. Now, what should we be looking for as the next development in this case? Well, the other side, the ACLU, will file a court pleading in response.

I am sure they will say that I'm trying to upend America, mother, baseball, apple pie, and everything that is good and just. But then we'll be ripe for a decision. and we'll see whether the Supreme Court is willing to establish some sort of process here, issue the writ, or perhaps they'll deny it. But this is an issue that probably is not going to go away quickly. If it's not on this case, it'll be back in front of the court in some other case, some other fact pattern. Right. So how are you hoping that it'll play out?

What's best case scenario? you? Well, I'm hoping for a clean decision out of the state Supreme Court saying, yeah, the rule says what the rule says. It's just the plaintiffs in front of you. And if you want to have a universal injunction, then you've got to go through the difficulty of getting a class, getting it certified, and going through all the protections that are in the civil rules there, because our democracy, our representative republic needs to have our values upheld. Right. And correct me if I'm wrong, but most Ohio voters do not want unlimited, so-called gender-affirming care,

aka transgender surgeries and procedures for minors to just be readily available. Is that correct? Yeah, I think that's right. You know, this is a fraught topic. some of these young people are in very difficult circumstances and I don't want to minimize the pain that they feel or the difficulty that their parents are facing. But we've seen enough people who have gone through the so-called detransitioners who had surgeries done and then regretted it later in life to realize that this is one.

of those things that kids shouldn't be given the freedom to do. Once you're 18, you're an adult, it's a free country. But the state has a reason to want to protect its kids and to protect the parents of those kids. Right. I just finished writing a book on this very topic. So detransitioners and their experiences are very important and we're glad that you're paying attention to this. So thank you so much, Attorney General Yos. We appreciate you. your time. I'll look for your book. Thanks very much. And that'll do it for today's episode. If you haven't gotten a chance, be sure to check out our evening show right here in this podcast feed, where we bring you the top news of the day. Also, make sure you subscribe to the daily signal

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