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NEWS - Can states, cities apply mor
Subject: NEWS - Can states, cities apply moral rules to buying?
Can states, cities apply moral rules to buying?
Supreme Court will answer the question
Tuesday, November 30, 1999
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER STAFF
and NEWS SERVICES
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court agreed
yesterday to decide whether state and local
governments can apply a moral standard to
spending decisions by restricting purchases
from companies that do business in countries
with human rights abuses.
The justices said they will use a Massachusetts
case to decide whether such policies interfere
with the federal government's authority to
conduct foreign policy.
A lower court threw out a Massachusetts law that
limited state purchases from companies that do
business with Myanmar, also known as Burma.
A number of state and local governments have
similar restrictions aimed at companies active in
Myanmar and other countries, including China
and Cuba. During the 1980s, many states and
cities boycotted companies that did business in
South Africa because of racial apartheid in that
country.
"Nothing in our federal Constitution denies to the
states the right to apply a moral standard to their
spending decisions," Massachusetts' appeal to
the Supreme Court said. "Not one constitutional
grant, prohibition or command requires the
states to trade with dictators."
Massachusetts' 1996 law generally barred the
state from buying goods and services from
companies doing business with Myanmar unless
there is no other comparable bid. In effect, the
law meant that a company doing business with
Myanmar could sell goods to Massachusetts only
if its bid was 10 percent lower than all other bids.
The law made exceptions for purchases of some
medical devices, for news-gathering companies,
and for international telecommunications
companies.
Several months after the Massachusetts law was
enacted, Congress imposed its own sanctions
on Myanmar. Invoking the law, President Clinton
in 1997 barred new U.S. investment in that
country.
The National Foreign Trade Council, which
represents companies involved in foreign trade,
initially challenged the Massachusetts law in
1998. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and
other business groups backed the trade council
in friend-of-the-court briefs before the Supreme
Court.
The state's appeal was supported in a
friend-of-the-court brief submitted jointly by 14
other states, including Washington.
Seattle City Councilman Nick Licata, who filed
an amicus brief in support of Massachusetts,
was buoyed by the court's decision to hear it, an
aide said.
"It's a real positive step that they've decided at
least to hear it," said Newell Aldrich, an aide to
Licata. "We've hoped it would be overturned."
In April 1998, Licata proposed expanding the
city's "selective purchasing ordinance" to include
Myanmar. The law was passed in 1990 in
response to South Africa's apartheid policies.
The measure failed by a 5-4 vote.
Licata believes the issue concerns local
sovereignty, not foreign policy, Aldrich said.