A federal judge has temporarily blocked a first-of-its-kind Oregon law that effectively banned personal letters written by homebuyers to home sellers.
District Judge Marco Hernandez ruled that the law, which went into effect at the start of the year, violates the First Amendment by restricting free speech, although he called the law’s goal of stopping discrimination in homeownership “laudable.”
The Democratic-controlled state Legislature brought forward the legislation early last year, and it was signed into law by Gov. Kate Brown back in June. The lawmakers supporting the legislation wanted to prevent prospective buyers from writing “love letters” trying to influence sellers because they claimed that sellers might make decisions based upon factors such as race, gender, or sexual orientation.
The Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian public interest law firm, filed a lawsuit in a U.S. District Court on behalf of Total Real Estate Group, arguing that the law violated the First Amendment. The group argued that lawmakers provided no concrete proof that the use of “love letters” was contributing to housing discrimination and contended that there are already laws on the books that fight such discrimination.
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“Today’s ruling preserves the opportunity of home-buyers to speak freely to sellers and make the case why their purchase offers should win out,” said Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Daniel Ortner. “Love letters communicate information that helps sellers select the best offer. The state cannot ban important speech because someone might misuse it.”
“Oregon’s overly broad speech restriction is clearly not justified, and today’s decision is a major victory for free speech and economic opportunity,” he added.
Proponents of the legislation argued that it wasn’t a violation of free speech. The chief sponsor of the legislation, Rep. Mark Meek, a real estate agent by trade, told FOX 12 that the legislation was crafted to cut down on implicit bias in the homebuying process.
“The only way that I saw, and a way that we can practically and very simply eliminate that practice, is just to not allow those letters,” Meek, a Democrat, told FOX 12. “We’re not impinging on free speech, a buyer can still write the letter, but the seller’s agent is no longer required to pass that information along.”
The legislation passed the state House unanimously and the Senate on a largely party-line vote, according to Oregon Live.
Hernandez said in his 29-page opinion and preliminary injunction that while Oregon “has a long and abhorrent history of racial discrimination in property ownership and housing,” the plaintiff “is likely to succeed on the merits of its First Amendment claim because the statute is overinclusive and cannot survive intermediate scrutiny.”
He said that the plaintiffs showed evidence that many of the “love letters” in question contain a significant amount of innocuous information that goes beyond references to a buyer’s personal characteristics.
“Some examples from the love letters in evidence are as follows: to express a desire to live permanently in the area, to explain unusual provisions of the offer, to discuss a love of gardening and how the home is well suited for growing plants, to admire the architectural style of the home, and to explain why a certain repair is important to the prospective buyer,” Hernandez said in his opinion.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to the Oregon Department of Justice for comment on the ruling.
