Judge Moore Needs Sanctions Law Refresher

at 3:39 PM Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Yesterday, Judge K. Michael Moore temporarily enjoined a Florida law that prohibits companies with business ties to the brutal Castro and Assad dictatorships from receiving Florida taxpayer funds.

This initial ruling is somewhat irresponsible, considering the 11th Circuit's precedent, but not surprising considering the history of district court rulings in the past.

In 2008, a federal judge in Miami ruled against a Florida law that similarly prohibits Florida taxpayer funds from going to colleges and universities sponsoring travel to Cuba.

That ruling was overturned by the 11th Circuit and upheld yesterday by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In 2006, a federal judge ruled against the Miami-Dade County School Board's decision to pull a pro-Castro propaganda book, "Vamos a Cuba," from its public schools.

That, too, was overturned by the 11th Circuit and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court.

So the track record of district courts in regards to these cases is not great.

However, that's no excuse for misrepresenting the law either.

According to The Miami Herald, in yesterday's hearing regarding the Cuba/Syria law:

"FDOT’s attorney, Paul J. Martin, had argued that the state is allowed to set parameters for how to spend public money. He also made a complicated argument that the state law does not run afoul of federal law because the Florida statute does not allow anything that U.S. law prohibits.

But Moore turned that argument on its head and noted that the state law prohibits something the federal law allows: American companies to bid on public contracts even if they are affiliated with companies doing work in Cuba."

That is untrue.

Federal law prohibits American companies or its subsidiaries (foreign or domestic) from doing work in Cuba.

Thus, the state law is not prohibiting something that the federal law allows.

To the contrary, it is consistent with the standard set in federal law for American companies and their subsidiaries.

And so long as it is consistent with federal law, it is constitutional (as per the U.S. Supreme Court in Crosby v. NFTC).