EdChoice Constitutional Challenge (Franklin County, 2025)

Two grounds, and they are independent. The court found that using public funds to subsidize tuition at private religious schools violates Article VI, Section 2’s bar on any religious or other sect having exclusive right to or control of any part of the school funds; and separately that the expansion of EdChoice undermines the state’s duty to maintain a thorough and efficient system, particularly while public schools remain underfunded. verified The second ground is what connects this case to DeRolph — it is the first time since 2003 that the thorough-and-efficient standard has done work in a decided Ohio case about money. inference

The grounds also distinguish this case sharply from Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, in which the United States Supreme Court upheld the Cleveland voucher program against a federal Establishment Clause challenge in 2002. verified A federal ruling that vouchers do not establish religion says nothing about whether Ohio’s own constitution permits them, and the sectarian-funds clause is Ohio text with no federal analogue. inference

This is a trial-level decision and the Attorney General moved to appeal, so its precedential weight is limited and its outcome unsettled. verified

What this repository computed # ↑ Contents

Not what Ohio publishes. Figures derived here from committed fixtures, each one citing the test that reproduces it.

The caption and the docket number are now read off an Ohio appellate decision in this very case. Columbus City School Dist. v. State, 2024-Ohio-1217, 10th Dist. No. 24AP-60, decided 29 March 2024, states both on its first page: the parties are Columbus City School District et al. v. State of Ohio et al. and the trial court case is Franklin C.P. No. 22CV-000067. verified

That decision is not about EdChoice. The Ohio Senate President, a non-party, was served with a deposition subpoena on 22 March 2023; the trial court granted his motion to quash in part and modified the subpoena to twenty written questions, and he appealed on legislative privilege. The Tenth District dismissed for want of a final appealable order, holding that he had not shown the order left him without a meaningful remedy after final judgment. verified So the appellate record of this case, as of this revision, consists of one dismissed interlocutory appeal about who may be deposed. verified

The merits decision itself is not held and the reason is a term of use, not a wall. Ohio’s Reporter of Decisions offers the supreme court, the twelve district courts of appeals and the Court of Claims as its sources, and no common pleas court. The Franklin County Clerk of Courts publishes the docket under conditions of use stating that the data “is not intended for distribution by other persons, entities or organizations” and that an organization wanting files must file a public records request. Both read off those publishers’ own pages rather than off a document this repository holds. inference So the ruling is readable by a person and is not redistributable from here, which is the same shape as the educational service center minute books in “The order was never the states”. See “What a citator reaches”.

The two dates this node is missing are docket entries, and dockets are what it cannot hold # ↑ Contents

Both the filing date and the appeal’s status are answered by a docket rather than by a decision, and the committed sources are the wrong genre for them — which is a sharper statement than “not established” and names what would end each question.

The filing date. The case number is committed: 2024-Ohio-1217 prints C.P.C. No 22CV-000067 on its first page, and a Franklin County civil number carries the year of filing, so 2022 is fixed. verified The day is not. filed: 2022-01-04 above is read off reporting, not off a document held here, and the record that states it is the Franklin County Clerk of Courts docket for 22CV-000067, whose first entry is the complaint with its file stamp. That docket is published under conditions of use stating the data “is not intended for distribution by other persons, entities or organizations”, so it is readable by a person and not redistributable from here. verified No LSC budget analysis, no appellate decision and no section of the Revised Code reaches a common pleas filing date, which is why none of the committed sources can close this. open

The appeal, and the docket that is not the one to read. 24AP-60 is not the merits appeal. It was the Senate President’s interlocutory challenge to a discovery order, it was dismissed in March 2024 for want of a final appealable order, and it is closed — so a Tenth District docket exists for this case and reading it answers a different question. verified An appeal from the June 2025 judgment would carry its own Tenth District case number, and the two records that would state it are that court’s docket, searched by party or by trial case number, and the Clerk’s docket for 22CV-000067, where a notice of appeal is an entry. Neither is held. open

What the committed record does support is a bound rather than a status: no Ohio appellate decision in this case later than 2024-Ohio-1217 was found on 14 August 2026, searching an index whose Tenth District coverage reached 31 July 2026. That places the merits appeal as undecided, not as unfiled, and says nothing about when it was taken. inference So “under appeal” is carried here as an unresolved posture with a date on the search, which is the only date any held document supports.

The number of districts joined as plaintiffs remains unestablished. The annual report and the budget analyses count students and dollars, not parties; the figure is a docket entry too — the caption’s full party list — and 2024-Ohio-1217 abbreviates it to “et al.” open