Florida travel ban could be headed to Supreme Court

Posted on Monday, 05.16.11

Florida travel ban could be headed to Supreme Court
By LESLEY CLARK
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- A controversial Florida law that restricts state colleges
and universities from traveling to Cuba and other "terrorist states"
could be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court for review.

The high court on Monday invited the Obama administration to file a
brief, outlining the United States' stance on the 2006 law, which bars
public schools and universities in Florida from using state money for
travel to countries considered by the federal government to be "sponsors
of terrorism" - Cuba, Iran, Sudan and Syria.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the faculty at the University of
South Florida, the University of Florida and Florida International
University in March asked the high court to review the law, which was
declared unconstitutional in 2008 by U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz
in Miami but upheld by a federal appeals court in September.

There was no word yet Monday on whether the U.S. solicitor general, who
would file for the administration, would file in the case. But the ACLU
said it was pleased the high court was "taking this seriously."

"By allowing Florida to prevent even privately funded research on Cuba
or any government, we are permitting states to maintain their own
foreign policies," said Howard Simon, executive director of the American
Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

The ACLU and the universities in March asked the high court to step in,
saying the Florida law makes Florida "the only state in the country with
its own foreign policy which runs over, above and contrary to the
foreign policy of the United States."

But the Florida Attorney General's Office in a filing last month told
the U.S. Supreme Court that the law doesn't prohibit travel and that the
appeals court found that Florida's "traditional state interest in
managing its own spending and the scope of its academic programs was
sufficient to overcome some indistinct desire on the part of the
executive branch or Congress to encourage generally academic travel."

U.S. Rep. David Rivera, a Miami Republican who pushed the measure as a
state lawmaker, hailed the appeals court decision at the time as helping
state lawmakers "ensure that public resources and taxpayers' dollars are
not utilized to subsidize travel to terrorist countries such as the
Castro regime."

The court's decision to ask the Obama administration to weigh in comes
as the White House looks to expand travel to Cuba, though the Florida
Attorney General's Office noted that the administration was invited to
file a brief in the appeals court but did not.

The Obama administration in January eased restrictions on scholarly
travel to Cuba in an effort to improve relations with Cubans. But
academics in Florida say state law puts Florida schools at a
disadvantage and has affected a number of long-range plans, including a
Cuban studies program on historical archives and documents of the 19th
and 20th centuries at the University of Florida, as well as academic
exchanges that had been agreed to with the University of Havana.

The ACLU has predicted that if the court takes up the case, oral
arguments would likely take place this fall.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/16/2219891/florida-travel-ban-could-be-headed.html