After last-minute gamesmanship, city avoids Supreme Court scrutiny for silencing pro-life advocates
(Thomas More Society) On February 24, 2025, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal challenging the constitutionality of “bubble zone” ordinances, which are laws enacted to restrict the speech of pro-life sidewalk counselors on the public right of way near abortion facilities. Justices Alito and Thomas would have granted certiorari in Coalition Life v. Carbondale, with Justice Thomas writing in dissent from the denial. “Hill has been seriously undermined, if not completely eroded, and our refusal to provide clarity is an abdication of our judicial duty,” Justice Thomas wrote, “I would have taken this opportunity to explicitly overrule Hill.”
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The case, brought by Thomas More Society attorneys and former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement on behalf of pro-life sidewalk counseling organization Coalition Life, asked the Court to overturn its heavily criticized decision in Hill v. Colorado—the precedent that has permitted certain “bubble zone” laws to stay on the books. The case arose out of Carbondale, Illinois, which had enacted a 100-foot bubble zone ordinance in response to the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. To avoid constitutional review before the Supreme Court, Carbondale convened an extraordinary Saturday session in the City Hall basement, on the eve of the high Court petition’s deadline, and repealed the bubble zone ordinance at the center of the high Court challenge.
“The reality that this ordinance was enacted in protest against Dobbs hardly gives confidence that Carbondale will refrain from reenacting its ordinance out of respect for this Court—especially given the city’s vehement defense of the ordinance even now,” wrote Paul Clement, Partner at Clement & Murphy PLLC, in the reply brief submitted to the Court. “The process by which it was repealed—a special four-minute weekend meeting—demonstrates both Carbondale’s propensity for gamesmanship and the city’s ability to alter its laws on a whim.”
“On the eve of our petition deadline, Carbondale quietly repealed its bubble zone ordinance in a shadowy, four-minute, weekend meeting, knowing full well their bubble zone would fail constitutional scrutiny if it came before the Supreme Court,” said Peter Breen, Thomas More Society Vice President & Head of Litigation. “While our clients are now able to sidewalk counsel freely in Carbondale, the city flagrantly violated their Free Speech rights for eighteen months, without penalty. And pro-abortion government bodies in many other cities across the country continue to unconstitutionally restrict the speech of pro-life sidewalk counselors. This game of legal Whac-A-Mole is an unsustainable dynamic, and the only solution is for the Court to overrule Hill once and for all.”
Tweet This: Pro-abortion government bodies in many cities across the U.S. continue to unconstitutionally restrict speech of pro-life sidewalk counselors
While the city claimed the ordinance’s repeal followed a belated determination that “no credible evidence of violation” of the bubble zone law had occurred, the four-minute meeting was a transparent effort to manipulate the Court’s jurisdiction to insulate itself from review by the Supreme Court. The case, if heard, would have presented a constitutional challenge to the Court’s 2000 decision in Hill v. Colorado, which Carbondale’s bubble zone ordinance was based upon.
“As we expand our operations to serve more women across the United States, we will continue to go wherever we are called. Our appeal may have been denied but across this nation, at hundreds of abortion facilities, a different sort of tragic ‘denial’ continues,” stated Brian Westbrook, Coalition Life Executive Director and Founder. “Cities and states across America are denying sidewalk counselors and law-abiding citizens their rights to inform women about their options... Women are being denied true choice as they are bullied into the only option that is offered by the abortion advocates.”
Carbondale’s legal gamesmanship is not the first instance a municipality has repealed a bubble zone ordinance in order to escape constitutional accountability before the Supreme Court. In August 2023, Westchester County, New York, repealed its bubble zone provision while the petition in Vitagliano v. County of Westchester, New York, challenging the ordinance, was under consideration before the Supreme Court. That petition was denied by the Court in December 2023. Thomas More Society is currently suing the City of San Diego to halt its recently enacted bubble zone ordinance, amongst other ongoing bubble zone-related litigation.
Read Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting from the denial of certiorari in Coalition Life v. Carbondale, issued February 24, 2025, by the United States Supreme Court, here.
Read the Petition for Writ of Certiorari, denied February 24, 2025 by the United States Supreme Court, and filed by Thomas More Society attorneys and Paul D. Clement on behalf of Coalition Life, in Coalition Life v. City of Carbondale, here.
Find background about Coalition Life v. City of Carbondale, on the Thomas More Society case page, here.
Editor's note: This article was published by Thomas More Society and is reprinted with permission.
