Polk Law Blog

The Ledger is reporting that the Lakeland City Commission has passed a resolution concerning their invocation policy. (UPDATE 8/3/2010: The Ledger has a more detailed article this morning.) The new policy is clearly designed to help the City get out of the recent lawsuit filed by the Atheists of Florida. You can read the draft resolution included in the Commission’s agenda packets for today’s meeting:

Lakeland prayer draft resolution

I do not know at the moment whether the actual resolution passed is identical to the draft, but I will find out. Perhaps someone who was at the meeting can comment.

The article in the Ledger focuses on the disclaimer that will be added to agendas from now on, but the resolution does much more than that. It addresses in detail how invocation leaders will be chosen. It is obvious that the Commission is trying to mirror the practice that was explicitly found to be Constitutional in the Pelphrey v. Cobb County case involving Cobb County, Georgia.

So much so, in fact, that part of the resolution reads “the Commission accepts as binding the applicability of general principles of law and all the rights and obligations afforded under the United States and Georgia Constitutions and statutes.” (p. 3, emphasis added). Oops. Obviously, the Commission has taken the text from a municipality in Georgia, possibly even Cobb County, and substantially borrowed from it. (This is an entirely appropriate thing to do.)

The resolution is largely a formality, but an important one, as the case will hinge on exactly how the speakers actually are chosen, not necessarily on how the Commission says they are chosen, but this policy certainly does not help the plaintiffs.

If the Commission has been acting as this new policy states all along, and continues to act in this way moving forward, they will have a good chance of getting through this unscathed (other than its own legal fees). If, however, their actual practice has not been and does not turn out to be as inclusive as the resolution requires, they will have more difficulty.

Also, if the plaintiffs are gunning for a change in the law, this latest move will do nothing to stop the suit, because the plaintiffs will want to ask the Eleventh Circuit to rethink Pelphrey and will at least take it that far.

At this point, we are still awaiting the City’s response to the Complaint. As soon as it comes through, I will post it here.