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Election Process Statement from AG Reyes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 9, 2020

ELECTION PROCESS STATEMENT FROM UTAH ATTORNEY GENERAL SEAN D. REYES
“This is about providing confidence in the election process to ensure it is fair and constitutional.”

SALT LAKE CITY – Today, Utah joined a coalition of attorneys general from 17 states in an amicus brief in support of the Texas petition to the United States Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the election process. The following is a statement from Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes:

“If Americans are to have confidence in the integrity of the election system, it is important the Supreme Court settles the question of who determines the time and place for voting: the legislature or the courts.
 
“This case is not about the propriety of Utah elections. I have great confidence in the bi-partisan work to assure fair and reliable elections in our state. That is why I joined the Utah Auditor, Treasurer and Governor-elect in certifying Utah election results. Rather, we join this amicus because of questions about process and constitutional integrity that need to be answered nationally.
 
“The fundamental constitutional question we need SCOTUS to answer is who really controls the time, place, and manner of elections in individual states? Is it the legislature, as it appears the Constitution commands? Or can that power be delegated or usurped in certain circumstances? The answer affects not only this election but potentially every future election.
 
“This case is not only about one candidate or election cycle, as important as they may be, but the fairness of all elections—current and future. It is about assuring the process is fair and uniform today and becomes so or remains so tomorrow.
 
“If the election was fair, the Supreme Court should say so. If not, it should say that. Either way, it should say something and not avoid the question. That is the only way to settle the constitutional question facing us today and for future generations and elections.
 
“Without the Supreme Court reviewing this matter and rendering its impartial judgment, there will always be questions regarding election integrity. The High Court should speak so we all, as Americans, have more clarity about who should set the terms of elections.
 
“Because all Americans need clarity and confidence in our national elections, I have joined the amicus brief supporting the petition of Texas and urge the Supreme Court to address this issue once and for all.”

The Supreme Court has ordered the defendant states to file a response to Texas’s request by 3 pm tomorrow.

12/10/2020–UPDATE: Attorney General Reyes authorized the state of Utah to join 5 other states in a motion to intervene in the election case.

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Attorney General Reyes Statement on U.S. Supreme Court Robocalls Ruling

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 6, 2020

ATTORNEY GENERAL REYES STATEMENT ON U.S. SUPREME COURT
ROBOCALLS RULING

SALT LAKE CITY — Today, the United States Supreme Court upheld the federal robocall ban with its decision in Barr v. AAPC. Earlier this year, Attorney General Sean D. Reyes signed onto an amicus brief in support of the ban as part of a 33-state coalition of attorneys general.
 
Attorney General Reyes’ statement is below:
 

“I’m glad the U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed the government’s authority to ban these robocalls, but this is just one piece of the bigger picture,” said Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes. “Our real concern will be to empower my state and federal partners to even more aggressively protect Utahns and Americans from crimes like financial fraud and identity theft.” 

“There are robocalls that are acceptable for things like school reminders and acceptable business contacts,” Reyes continued.  “We need to continue to fight the millions of unchecked robocalls annually that unscrupulous businesses and predators use to exploit unsuspecting consumers across America. Many of these calls originate overseas.”

Attorney General Reyes has worked diligently to ensure telephone carriers can aggressively block illegal robocalls before they reach consumers through ongoing collaborations with the Federal Communication Commission (FCC), the Telecom industry and a coalition of state attorneys general.  Reyes urged the passage of the Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence (TRACED) Act, which enables the industry to develop call authentication protocols to combat caller- ID spoofing and implement other sweeping anti-robocall measures and demanded the FCC take expedient action in the Truth in Caller ID Act rulemaking process against illegal spoofing. Reyes was also instrumental in developing the Anti-Robocall Principles for telecoms to reduce the number of unwanted and illegal robocalls reaching the American people, which were adopted by 51 attorneys general and 12 major telecom providers in August 2019. 

Reyes added: “I have worked for years on this issue to ensure a balance of enforcement against bad actors on one hand and not getting in the way of legitimate business or public service contacts on the other.  Tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars are lost yearly to these types of scams and identity frauds. I am very pleased that the High Court today reaffirmed the government’s authority to ban illegal robocalls.”

“I am proud to work with a bipartisan group of state attorneys general to protect our citizens from illegal robocalls. I will continue to do everything in my power to fight this threat in Utah and America,” said Attorney General Reyes.

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AG Reyes Joins Bipartisan Fight Against Robocalls With U.S. Supreme Court Filing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 3, 2020

UTAH ATTORNEY GENERAL REYES JOINS BIPARTISAN FIGHT AGAINST NUISANCE ROBOCALLS WITH U.S. SUPREME COURT FILING

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes on Monday joined a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing for the preservation of the anti-robocall provisions of the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill and North Carolina Attorney General Joshua Stein co-authored the bipartisan brief, which is joined by 31 other states.

The TCPA, enacted in 1991, is a critical piece of federal consumer-protection legislation allowing states to sue illegal robocallers on their residents’ behalf. A decision in the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals recently invalidated a portion of the act, potentially jeopardizing the entire federal robocall ban.

“Everyone hates those constant robocalls, which are both annoying and harmful at times,” Attorney General Reyes said. “On behalf of Utah consumers, I am continuing our state’s fight to safeguard peace and privacy without the disturbance of unwanted calls interrupting people’s routines at all hours of the day and night.”

“No court has ever questioned the constitutionality of the TCPA’s robocall restriction, and we must ensure no such challenge is ever taken seriously,” Attorney General Hill said. “We have state laws prohibiting robocalls right here in Indiana, and we must defend our ability both at the federal and state levels to continue protecting Hoosiers from annoying and illegal robocalls.”

Attorney General Reyes continues working with other states’ attorneys general, federal agencies and telephone service providers to develop better technologies and stronger regulations aimed at blocking nuisance phone calls, some of which are perpetrated by scammers and identity thieves.

Read the brief filed Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court here.

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Solicitor Tyler Green on Symposium: Why a Justice James Madison and a Justice Jerry Jones would vote for Seila Law

February 13, 2020

The State of Utah joined a 13-state amicus brief supporting the petitioner in Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Utah Solicitor General Tyler R. Green wrote the following article in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) Blog. Read the article here.

Symposium: Why a Justice James Madison and a Justice Jerry Jones would vote for Seila Law

By Solicitor General Tyler R. Green

Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau might be this term’s most important case that nonlawyers outside of Washington, D.C., haven’t heard of. It presents classic governmental power struggles—the president versus Congress, and the federal government versus the states—that gripped the Founders in Philadelphia more than 200 years ago. They understood that the outcome of those struggles would shape how the Constitution protects individual liberty. Anyone still interested in that issue would do well to follow this case closely.

The facts giving rise to those questions here are straightforward enough. Prompted by the Great Recession, Congress passed a law in 2010 that came to be known as the Dodd-Frank Act (after two of its main sponsors). Among other things, Dodd-Frank created a new federal agency named the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The federal government describes the CFPB’s job as “regulat[ing] a substantial segment of the Nation’s economy.” In fact, the government says the CFPB wields “much of the authority to regulate consumer financial products and services that had been vested in other federal agencies.”

But those other federal agencies and the CFPB have vastly different leadership structures. At the other agencies, the bosses are either a group of commissioners—so official action requires a majority vote—or a single person whom the president may remove at will. In contrast, the CFPB’s director is one person appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term. And during that five-year term, the president may remove the director only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

So constituted, the CFPB decided to investigate whether Seila Law, a solo-practitioner law firm, violated federal consumer-financial regulations when it helped clients obtain consumer debt relief. The CFPB asked Seila Law to give it documents and information related to its investigation. Seila Law responded by asking the CFPB to withdraw its demand for documents, arguing that the agency’s leadership structure violates the Constitution’s separation of powers. When the CFPB persisted, Seila Law responded to only part of the demand, continuing to argue that the agency’s structure is unconstitutional. The CFPB then obtained an order from a federal district court in California requiring Seila Law to comply with the CFPB’s demand (narrowed slightly). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed that district court order.

What about those facts moved 13 states to file a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Supreme Court to agree with the federal government, which itself has conceded that the CFPB’s structure violates the separation of powers? Readers with enough time and interest can find full explanations in the states’ brief. For everyone else, here’s the CliffsNotes version of the two critical points. And to try to make those points even clearer, I’ll use a metaphor based on America’s apparent de facto religion: the National Football League.

Suppose you own an NFL team. You and millions of your fans share the same obvious goal—win the Super Bowl. That’s easier said than done; every year, 31 teams fall short. Consider all the pieces that must fall into place for you to become the champion: You need the right players executing the right plays at the right time for the better part of at least 19 weeks. With so many moving pieces, arguably the most important decision you’ll make is whom to hire to fit them all into place—who will be your head coach?

So much flows from that crucial decision. Your head coach sets your team’s tone, and not just by his personal demeanor. As head coach, he’ll make scores of critical choices that saturate every aspect of team life. He’ll hire an offensive and a defensive coordinator and position coaches. He’ll implement a practice system. He’ll need to communicate his vision to his staff and players and decide how to respond if they disagree with him or fail to meet expectations. In short, to paraphrase President Harry Truman, the buck stops with him.

Given those realities, if you decided to fire your head coach and hire a new one, no one would take seriously the suggestion that the new guy must retain the old one’s coordinators or position coaches—or that, going forward, the new coach could not make changes to his staff as he deems appropriate. You’ve given him a job to do; like Jerry Jones, you want to give your coach “carte blanche to form his staff as he sees fit.” Even players recognize that a new head coach doesn’t “want to inherit a whole lot of coaches” because “he has to make sure everyone he has in place is on the same page as him.”

So it is here. That’s the states’ first critical point. Truman was right—the buck does stop with the president. After a long campaign, Americans hire just one person to do the specific job of carrying out the federal government’s constitutional duties in a way that honors the Constitution’s text but reflects the majority’s political and policy preferences. The president must be able to pick his own department and agency heads—that is, his coordinators and position coaches—to give him the best chance of implementing his vision and keeping his political promises. Hence James Madison’s insistence, quoted in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, that the president has “the power of appointing, overseeing, and controlling those who execute the laws.”

Dodd-Frank’s removal restriction on the CFPB’s director violates that intuitive order. And upholding it would break new constitutional ground. Never before has the Supreme Court held that Congress can restrict the president’s ability to remove a single-person agency head. This is no time for the court to change course and effectively hold that, like it or not, some presidents must do part of their job with a prior president’s person.

The states’ second point concerns the limits of the coach’s and team’s control. Though a head coach bears ultimate final responsibility for the parts of a player’s life bound up with the team, he has little control over a player’s choices outside that realm. Take nutrition, for example. Even if a team hires a dietitian to give its players nutritional advice, or provides some meals during training camp or other parts of the year, players can still hire their own consultants to advise on specific nutrition or other fitness needs. When that advice makes a player more valuable to the team, no harm done. But sometimes disputes arise between the team’s and the player’s preferences, and the coach needs unfettered flexibility to respond to them.

Just like the team and the coach, the federal government and the president have limits on their power. Madison wrote in Federalist No. 39 that the federal government’s “jurisdiction extends to certain enumerated objects only, and leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty.” And historically, consumer-protection laws have been the states’ domain. Yet as financial markets have matured, federal regulators—typically multi-member commissions—have begun to exercise some overlapping consumer-protection power in this area. Over time, state regulators and their federal counterparts have joined forces to create regulatory regimes that foster the consistency necessary to both protect consumers and keep financial markets stable. No harm, no foul.

Ironically, in the name of protecting consumers, Dodd-Frank created a system that threatens to upend that cooperative framework. The CFPB’s largely unremovable director can exercise vast amounts of regulatory power with no input from the president or any state legislature. The reality that one politically unaccountable federal agency head can make (or unmake) consumer-financial policies affecting millions of people and billions of dollars is more than a little hard to square with the Framers’ promise of retained state sovereignty.

At bottom, the states’ concerns here are not the separation of powers or state sovereignty for their own sake. The Framers deployed each of those devices for one overarching purpose: to protect individual liberty. A federal agency head with vast regulatory power over “a substantial segment of the Nation’s economy”—but who is largely insulated from the president’s political control, and who need not bother consulting with the states before acting—epitomizes the very type of threat to liberty that the Constitution guards against. Disapproving the restrictions on the president’s power to remove the CFPB director would affirm the Constitution’s first principles by protecting the structures that protect us.

Posted in Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection BureauSymposium before oral argument in Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection BureauFeatured

“Sex”, Title VII, and the role of the courts

Yesterday, Utah joined Nebraska and fourteen other states asking the Supreme Court to remember that policy changes should come from legislative bodies, not the courts. You can read the brief here

Two quick facts:

First, SB 296 is not at risk. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Harris Funeral Homes will not affect Utah’s housing and employment protections for the LGBTQ community.  Those Utah statutes are not (and will not be) the basis for any Court decision in Harris

Second, the brief doesn’t address whether prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity is good or bad policy.  Instead, it makes the straightforward point that Congress—not the federal courts— should decide those types of policy questions.

So, why did we sign on? 

The issue in Harris Funeral Homes is how to interpret a word in a federal statute known as Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination on a number of protected characteristics. One of those prohibitions is discrimination on the basis of “sex.” Some courts—including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Harris Funeral Homes—have interpreted the word “sex” to mean not just the physiological distinctions between men and women, but also a person’s personal gender identity. The states’ brief argues—as other courts have found—that this interpretation contradicts the widespread public understanding when Congress adopted Title VII that discrimination based on “sex” meant only discrimination on physiological distinctions.

Now you know. 

The role of American courts is not to redefine the law. When laws need to be amended to include a broader definition, that responsibility belongs to the appropriate legislative body, not the courts.

 

 

 

 

Utah Joins California on Federalism Issue

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 7, 2018

UTAH JOINS CALIFORNIA ON FEDERALISM ISSUE
Eighteen states urge U.S. Supreme Court to follow 1985 precedent

SALT LAKE CITY – Today, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes announced Utah has joined California and sixteen other states asking the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold a Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision stating land use regulation and state property law cases should be heard in state courts before moving into the federal court system.

“From time to time, Utah and California interpret the constitution differently,” said AG Reyes. “In this case, however, we agree that questions about state property laws and land use regulations should be heard in a state court first. Local self-governance, especially on land use issues, is an American principle of federalism we need to preserve.”

The bipartisan coalition hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will affirm the appeals court ruling and the 1985 high court precedent prohibiting landowners from litigating takings claims in federal court until they have exhausted all avenues at the state level. The coalition of states contend that state courts are best situated to resolve complex, local conflicts – especially when individual rights and the needs of the community may be in tension.

The case involves Rose Mary Knick, owner of 90 acres of rural land in eastern Pennsylvania, and the Township of Scott, Pennsylvania. Knick alleged the violation of her Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights and appealed the Third Circuit Court of Appeals before exhausting state-law remedies. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments of Knick v. Township of Scott in their next session.

Utah joined the California-led brief along with attorneys general from Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia.

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NOTES:

1. You can review the amicus brief here: https://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/17-647-Knick-v.-Township-of-Scott-Amicus-Brief.pdf.

2. For more information on the details of Knick v. Township of Scott, see 
SCOTUSblog: http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/03/justices-grant-review-two-new-cases & Oyez: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2018/17-647.

3. The AG’s office published a blog explaining its stance. You can read that here: https://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/statebeforefed/.

State Courts Before Federal Courts

At times, Utah and California are on opposite sides of critical legal issues, but today we stand together on the solid principles of federalism.  

Utah has joined our west-coast neighbor and 16 other states to ask SCOTUS to affirm a court of appeals decision that says state property law and land use regulation should be heard in state court before it goes to federal court.

You can read the brief here: 17-647 Knick v. Township of Scott Amicus Brief

We believe landowners should pursue compensation remedies that are available in state court before bringing takings claims in federal court.

Why?

Local courts are best situated to resolve complex, local conflicts – especially when individual rights and the needs of the community may be in tension. Federal courts tend to be removed from the day-to-day workings of state government and have different priorities; they are naturally designed to serve federal goals not state policy initiatives. Hearing land disputes in state court first also preserves each state’s ability to prevent regulatory overreaching by its own agents or subdivisions, thereby facilitating state efforts to ensure effective, efficient, and fiscally responsible regulation.

Of course, federal courts will always have the ability to provide guidance for the protection of federal constitutional rights.

We hope SCOTUS will see this issue the same way as Utah and California and affirm the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision of dismissal based on a similar decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1985.

Guarding the First Amendment

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the First Amendment prohibits states from turning pro-life pregnancy clinics into government mouthpieces required to convey a state’s preferred message about abortion.  Utah supports this decision, along with 20 other states who filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to protect the clinics’ First Amendment rights. 

It is a significant win. 

It all started in 2015 when California passed the Reproductive FACT Act. The legislation, an acronym for Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency, required two types of crisis pregnancy clinics – unlicensed and licensed – to post certain kinds of notices. Unlicensed crisis pregnancy centers had to disclose to their clients that they are not a licensed medical facility and have no licensed medical provider on staff. Licensed clinics that do not provide a full range of reproductive services had to post a sign informing clients that the State provides free or low-cost access to prenatal care, birth control, and other reproductive services, including abortion.

Most crisis-pregnancy centers are faith-based and pro-life. As a result, the FACT Act would require them to disseminate a message about practices they oppose. The states’ amicus brief opposed this requirement.  No other medical facility is required to inform its clients about services provided by other facilities.

The Supreme Court ruled that the FACT Act likely violates the First Amendment because the Act requires the clinics to speak a particular message that is not their own and therefore alters the content of their speech. This becomes an act of forced speech, since promoting alternative services, including abortion, would be a violation of their beliefs.

Bottom line:

Not only is the government not allowed to ban speech, it isn’t allowed to tell you what to say either.

For more documents, and information, check out SCOTUSblog

 

Utah’s War on the Unreadable Amicus

Well over 800 amicus briefs were submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2017.  All were numbered, tagged, diced, and measured for the following five crucial elements of good legal writing:

  • Flow
  • Plain English
  • Punchiness
  • Reading Happiness
  • Sentence Length

Top score? Utah’s Solicitor General Tyler Green, of course. 

Here’s an excerpt from Doctor Adam Feldman’s analysis entitled Getting Rid of those Amicus Blues

The top scoring brief was from Utah’s Solicitor General Tyler Green in Lucia v. SEC.  Another one of Green’s briefs, the one from D.C. v. Wesby, ranked in this top group as well. 

The Utah AG’s Office combines the natural respect of courts for the work of the states with style, readability, and strong arguments. 

Why this matters

“The number of amicus briefs filed each term far outweighs the number of briefs filed by direct parties. These amicus groups vie against one another for the Court’s attention as the resources for evaluating these briefs are limited.  High-quality writing remains one of the best ways for groups to get the Court’s attention. . . “

Bryan Schott has more in Utah Policy.

Read Dr. Feldman’s full report here

AG Reyes’ statement on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 9, 2018

 

UTAH ATTORNEY GENERAL REYES COMMENTS ON SCOTUS NOMINATION
Sean Reyes Praises Judge Kavanaugh, Urges Quick Confirmation

SALT LAKE CITY – This evening, Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes made the following statement in support of the appointment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States:

I applaud President Trump for nominating Judge Brett Kavanaugh to serve as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Kavanaugh’s experience and jurisprudence on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia demonstrates he has the most important quality a judicial nominee can possess—the ability to decide cases as an impartial judge based on the U.S. Constitution and laws passed by Congress, and not as a would-be legislator, based on laws as the judge may wish them to be.

President Trump deserves credit for continuing his commitment to nominate originalist and textualist jurists like Justice Neal Gorsuch and Judge Brett Kavanaugh who respect the Constitution and the Rule of Law. Judge Kavanaugh brings with him many of the best aspects of Justice Kennedy’s legacy in addition to his own unique lens to the Court.

Those who have worked with Judge Kavanaugh on both sides of the aisle praise his intellect, approach and character on the bench. He will be a fine addition to the High Court. I urge the Senate to quickly confirm Judge Kavanaugh so that the Court can continue its important work with a full complement of Justices when it returns to the bench this fall.

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[UPDATE, 7/13/18:] A majority of the nation’s state attorneys general, including AG Reyes, asked the United States Senate to confirm Judge Kavanaugh, describing him as an outstanding jurist with a proven commitment to upholding the Constitution and the rule of law. Here’s the letter