Columbus, OH – On Monday, The Buckeye Institute filed an amicus brief in Texas v. Yellen with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Buckeye Institute previously filed briefs in similar cases (Ohio v. Yellen, West Virginia v. Yellen, and Arizona v. Yellen), which urged those respective courts to rule that the Biden Administration’s tax mandate—included in the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA)—is ambiguous and therefore unenforceable and that the treasury secretary cannot fix Congress’s error through regulatory action.

“As The Buckeye Institute has argued and several courts have already ruled, Congress must act clearly if it is applying conditions to a state’s receipt of federal funds and—in the case of this tax mandate—Congress failed to do so,” said Robert Alt, president and chief executive officer of The Buckeye Institute and an attorney on the case. “What is clear, however, is that with this federal tax mandate, the Biden Administration has attempted the most sweeping usurpation of state taxing authority in U.S. history.”

“We are confident that the Fifth Circuit will reject the Biden Administration’s attempt to bulldoze the Constitution’s separation of powers and usurp states’ core powers over state tax policy and public health and safety,” said Andrew M. Grossman, a partner at BakerHostetler LLP and senior legal fellow at The Buckeye Institute.

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UPDATE: On June 25, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed with arguments put forward by The Buckeye Institute, writing, “In exercising its power under the Spending Clause, Congress has a constitutional obligation to cut a clear deal with the states when they accept federal funding. Because the challenged provision is not clear about what it requires of the states, it falls short of that obligation and is impermissibly ambiguous. Accordingly, we reach the same ultimate conclusion as have two other circuit courts and AFFIRM the district court’s grant of a permanent injunction.”