Stay denied in family farms case
on Feb 8, 2007 at 2:40 pm
UPDATE: Thursday, 2:40 p.m. Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., in a brief order, denied a request by Nebraska officials to delay a federal appeals court ruliing against the state constitutional provision seeking to preserve family ownership of farms and ranches in the state. Alito gave no explanation for denying the stay application (06A772, Gale v. Jones, et al.). The Justice acted after receiving a response Wednesday night. The response can be found here.
Nebraska officials have asked a Supreme Court Justice to block a lower court ruling that scuttled the state’s long-running effort to keep its farms and ranches in family hands by barring ownership by corporations or non-farming partnerships. In a stay application (06A772), filed last Friday and made public on Wednesday, the state asked Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., as Circuit Justice to delay enforcement of a lower court decision that nullifies the corporate ownership ban in Nebraska’s constitution. The stay, if granted, would be in effect until the Court acts on the state’s pending appeal (Gale v. Jones, docket 06-1045, filed on Jan. 23, with a response now due on March 1). The complete application for stay can be downloaded here.
The state constitutional provision, adopted by Nebraska voters in 1982 as Initiative 300, bars corporations or syndicates — limited partnerships that are not family owned — from buying land used for farming or ranching in the state, or engaging in farming and ranching except for situations where a farmer or rancher and his or her family own a majority of stock.
Challenged by existing owners of farm land or ranch land in the state, the provision was struck down by the Eighth Circuit Court in December. Initiative 300, the Circuit Court found, “is facially discrimnatory because its prohibition against farming by corporations and syndicates does not apply to family farm corporations or limited partnerships in which at least one family member resides on or engages in the daily labor and management of the farm.” The provision, it said, “favors Nebraska residents, and people who are in such close proximity to Nebraska farms and ranches that a daily commute is physicially and economically feasible for them.” The measure, it added, was designed to bar absentee ownership and operation of farms and ranches. The Circuit Court upheld a federal judge’s order against enforcement of the ban; that injunction goes into effect on Thursday.
The state’s application argues that the case involves “the states’ power to regulate and limit the powers and abilities of all state-created limited liability entities seeking to conduct business within a state…To uphold the findings of the Eighth Circuit would severely impede the ability of the states to regulate state-created entities seeking to conduct business within a state on grounds which do not discriminate against interstate commerce.”
As Circuit Justice, Alito may act on the application himself, or refer it to the full Court for action.
