Patrick Rooney:
The City of Grants Pass WON in the Supreme Court (City of Grants Pass v. Johnson), giving it the right to control overnight “camping” in its parks.
Then a state affiliated group (Disability Rights Oregon) cooks up another angle to essentially VOID the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision , filing a lawsuit which two JC judges agreed with, filing injunctions against the city, and bullying it into “compliance,” forcing the city to take in more “homeless” and allowing them to camp out on city property again including almost all the parks!
These injunctions leaned on STATE law, starting with Oregon House Bill 3115, which essentially says that laws regulating “public camping” need to be “objectively reasonable.” What in the hell does that mean??? It means that the HB 3115 was clearly written to be AMBIGUOUS, and open to the interpretation of activist judges!
And for good measure, these injunctions also leaned on the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and those filing the lawsuit found five individuals claiming homeless status to give them the credibility to sue because area the city set up for “overnight camping” supposedly aren’t “handicapped-accessible” (BTW, how does “overnight” camping become a week?!).
BTW #2, I read somewhere last week that there was an issue with one of these “homeless plaintiffs.” If someone remembers what that was or is, please post.
I’m a bit confused. Is the grounds for this lawsuit Oregon House Bill 3115, is it the Americans with Disabilities Act, or are they just throwing them together in a stew to put more “power” behind their lawsuit and injunctions?
So it appears that the lawsuit and injunctions are relying on a combination of Federalism (the Oregon STATE law) and FEDERAL law (the Americans with Disabilities Act) to essentially OVERTURN the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling. They were able to get away with that, apparently, because the U.S. Supreme Court ruling dealt with the Eighth Amendment (“cruel and unusual PUNISHMENT”–a real stretch of a case to begin with!). And these cases simply cooked up new reasons to get around the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling.
So where does that leave us? Under STATE of Oregon tyranny as usual! The law here is clearly being used to SUBVERT THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE and create DISORDER in the city of Grants Pass.
The “law” CREATED a burden on the city pretty much out of thin air! On what grounds is a city (and of course, by extension the PEOPLE who live in it) REQUIRED to “fix” a problem it didn’t create?
Everybody knows that the number of ACTUAL homeless people who are actually FROM Grants Pass, and who are not drug addicts (THOSE WHO DESIRE TO REMAIN THAT WAY) is actually a comparatively SMALL number of people. Those people can and SHOULD be helped in whatever way they can be. But that should not constitute OVERLOADING the city with other basically lawless people!
This is common sense! Nobody–except those who WANT to see the city of Grants Pass reduced to abject dependency on Salem, or those who have misguided guilt and want to enable drug addicts who don’t want to change–should be in favor of continuing this INSANITY and massive injustice to the People of Grants Pass!
So what is the SOLUTION? I’m not a lawyer, and there are a lot smarter people than me out there. But I will say that Oregon House Bill 3115 is an ambiguous JOKE and needs to be overturned.
The Oregon Supreme Court should immediately step in and provide EMERGENCY relief to the People of Grants Pass. But knowing how Left the State of Oregon is, and not knowing much about the Oregon Supreme Court, I’d only assume they’re in the tank for the Left.
That may leave the U.S. Supreme Court as the last hope if these Oregon State bodies won’t move. The SPIRIT of their ruling has been GUTTED. And the City of Grants Pass has been placed back into a state of CHAOS.
That’s my best shot. I hope there are good legal minds here who can help steer us to a just conclusion.