City of Boerne v. Flores
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| City of Boerne v. Flores | ||||||||||||||
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| Argued February 19, 1997 Decided June 25, 1997 |
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| Holding | ||||||||||||||
| Enactment of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 exceeded congressional power under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. | ||||||||||||||
| Court membership | ||||||||||||||
| Chief Justice: William Rehnquist Associate Justices: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer |
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| Case opinions | ||||||||||||||
| Majority by: Kennedy Joined by: Rehnquist, Stevens, Scalia (all but part III-A-1), Thomas, Ginsburg Concurrence by: Stevens Concurrence by: Scalia Joined by: Stevens Dissent by: O'Connor Joined by: Breyer (except a portion of part I) Dissent by: Souter Dissent by: Breyer |
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| Laws applied | ||||||||||||||
| U.S. Const. amends. I, XIV; Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488, codified at 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb et seq. | ||||||||||||||
City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), was a Supreme Court case concerning the scope of Congress's enforcement power under the fifth section of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case also had a significant impact on historic preservation.
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[edit] Facts
The case arose when the Catholic Archbishop of San Antonio applied for a building permit to enlarge his 1923 mission-style St. Peter's Church in Boerne, Texas.[1] Local zoning authorities denied the permit, relying on an ordinance governing additions and new construction in a historic district which included the church as a contributing property. The Archbishop brought a lawsuit challenging the permit denial under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA, pronounced "rifra"). Archbishop Flores argued that his congregation had outgrown the existing structure. He claimed his ability to act on his beliefs were substantially burdened by the denial of his proposed addition.[2]
Congress had enacted RFRA in direct response to the Supreme Court's decision in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), wherein the Court had upheld—against a First Amendment challenge—an Oregon law criminalizing peyote use, which was used in Native American religious rituals.[3] The State of Oregon won, on the basis that their drug laws were "non-discriminatory laws of general applicability."[4] Religious groups became concerned that this case would be sited as precedent, causing further regulation of common religious practices, and lobbied Congress for legislative protection.[5] RFRA was intended to protect the right of citizens to the free exercise of their religion above and beyond the degree to which the Court recognized it. For example, in the Smith case, the government justified its enforcement simply because the law was a "non-discriminatory law of general applicability." With the RFRA, government must have a compelling interest, or use the least restrictive means of enforcement to justify their laws.[6]
The compelling interest-least restrictive means method was how a majority of cases were decided prior to the Smith case. One such case is Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963), which involved a woman who was fired and denied unemployment benefits based on her religion that restricted her from working on Saturdays. She won because her First Amendment right to free exercise of religion was infringed upon and the state did not have a compelling government interest to deny unemployment.[7]
The rights that RFRA was intended to guarantee were imposed by Congress on the states. The vehicle by which Congress did this was the Fourteenth Amendment, and in particular that Amendment's fifth section, which gave Congress the power to enact legislation to protect the substantive rights guaranteed by the rest of the Amendment. Since the Amendment had been interpreted to implicitly incorporate the free-exercise provisions of the First Amendment and make them good against the states, Congress was able to use the Fourteenth Amendment to enact legislation designed to protect rights expressly guaranteed by the First.
[edit] Result
[edit] District Court
The City of Boerne was successful at the District Court. A federal judge struck down the RFRA, ruling it unconstitutional. Flores appealed to the Fifth Circuit Court, which found the RFRA constitutional and reversed the District Court's decision. Boerne filed a certiorari petition to the Supreme Court.[8] The National Trust for Historic Preservation, among other preservation organizations, filed briefs in support of Boerne.[9]
[edit] Supreme Court
The Court, in an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, struck down RFRA as an unconstitutional use of Congress's enforcement powers. Because it was the Court that had the sole power of defining the substantive rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment—a definition to which Congress could not add and from which it could not subtract—and because RFRA was not legislation designed to have "congruence and proportionality" with the substantive rights that the Court had defined, Congress could not constitutionally enact RFRA. Although Congress could enact "remedial" or "prophylactic" legislation that guaranteed rights not exactly congruent with those defined by the Court, it could only do so in order to more effectively prevent, deter or correct violations of those rights actually guaranteed by the Court. RFRA was seen disproportionate in its effects compared to its objective. Justice Kennedy writes:
| “ | Legislation which alters the meaning of the Free Exercise Clause cannot be said to be enforcing the Clause. While the line between measures that remedy or prevent unconstitutional actions and measures that make a substantive change in the governing law is not easy to discern, and Congress must have wide latitude in determining where it lies, the distinction exists and must be observed...Congress does not enforce a constitutional right by changing what the right is. | ” |
Moreover, remedial or prophylactic legislation still had to show "congruence and proportionality" between the end it aimed to reach (that is, the violations it aimed to correct), and the means it chose to reach those ends—that is, the penalties or prohibitions it enacted to prevent or correct those violations. Because RFRA was not reasonably remedial or prophylactic, it was unconstitutional.
RFRA also violates the Establishment Clause in that it provides a significant legal advantage to owners of religious property. RFRA fails to consider whether owners of religious property have been burdened any more than other citizens, or if their rights have been violated because of their religion.[10]
However, the scope of this decision has been limited by the subsequent case of Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficente Uniao do Vegetal. In a footnote, Chief Justice Roberts states that Flores holds RFRA unconstitutional only as to the states. While a reading of Flores does not lead itself to this conclusion, Gonzales does apply RFRA to federal statutes.
Justice Kennedy wrote in his opinion,
| “ | Congress' power under § 5, however, extends only to "enforc[ing]" the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court has described this power as "remedial." The design of the Amendment and the text of § 5 are inconsistent with the suggestion that Congress has the power to decree the substance of the Fourteenth Amendment's restrictions on the States. Legislation which alters the meaning of the Free Exercise Clause cannot be said to be enforcing the Clause. Congress does not enforce a constitutional right by changing what the right is. It has been given the power "to enforce," not the power to determine what constitutes a constitutional violation. Were it not so, what Congress would be enforcing would no longer be, in any meaningful sense, the "provisions of [the Fourteenth Amendment]." (citations omitted) | ” |
[edit] Implications
Flores is important for several reasons. One of them is that it introduced a completely new test for deciding whether Congress had exceeded its section-five powers: the "congruence and proportionality" test, a test that has proven to have great importance in the context of the Eleventh Amendment. Another reason was that it explicitly declared that the Court alone has the ability to state which rights are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Yet another was that it had First Amendment consequences too, in that it spelled the end for any legislative attempts to overturn Employment Division v. Smith.
The "congruence and proportionality" requirement replaced the previous theory advanced in Katzenbach v. Morgan that the Equal Protection Clause is "a positive grant of legislative power authorizing Congress to exercise its discretion in determining the need for and nature of legislation to secure Fourteenth Amendment guarantees." Before the 1997 Boerne decision, Katzenbach v. Morgan was often interpreted as allowing Congress to go beyond, but not fall short of, the Court's interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause. But that is not how the majority opinion in Boerne interpreted Katzenbach:
| “ | There is language in our opinion in Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641 (1966), which could be interpreted as acknowledging a power in Congress to enact legislation that expands the rights contained in § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This is not a necessary interpretation, however, or even the best one.... If Congress could define its own powers by altering the Fourteenth Amendment's meaning, no longer would the Constitution be "superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means." | ” |
The holding of Boerne said that only the Court could interpret the Constitution, in order to maintain the "traditional separation of powers between Congress and the Judiciary." Also, Boerne[11] relied on arguments for protecting the rights that pertain to state governments[12] based on "enumerated powers." The intent of Boerne was to prevent "a considerable congressional intrusion into the States' traditional prerogatives and general authority." The holding of Boerne specifically mentioned the state action doctrine of the Civil Rights Cases as a Court interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause that limits the "remedial or preventive" power of Congress.
[edit] Historic Preservation
The Supreme Court's decision in City of Boerne made a significant impact on the state's authority to enact and enforce laws, including those pertaining to historic preservation. Under RFRA, an otherwise neutral state law—such as zoning, or historic preservation ordinances—needed to be scrutinized if its enforcement involved a religious group or individual. Therefore, by declaring RFRA unconstitutional, the ability of the states to establish and maintain historic preservation ordinances was made easier.[13]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
[edit] Notes
- ^ Miller, Julia. "U.S. Supreme Court Declares RFRA Unconstitutional in Texas Religious Landmarking Case," Preservation Law Reporter (PLR) 16, p. 1053
- ^ PLR 16, p.1053
- ^ Mauro, Tony. Illustrated Great Decisions of the Supreme Court. Washington D.C.: CQ Press, 2000.
- ^ Minan, John H. "Historic Preservation and Religious Uses," 1997.
- ^ Mauro, Tony. p.38
- ^ Minan, John H.
- ^ Mauro, Tony. p.37
- ^ Mauro, Tony. p.38
- ^ PLR 16, p.1053
- ^ PLR 16, p.1168
- ^ Kennedy's opinion for the Court, City of Boerne v. Flores
- ^ To support its argument that Congress lacked plenary power to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court pointed to a proposed enforcement provision which was rejected by the Congress that eventually approved the Fourteenth Amendment:
- "Democrats and conservative Republicans argued that the proposed Amendment would give Congress a power to intrude into traditional areas of state responsibility, a power inconsistent with the federal design central to the Constitution. Typifying these views, Republican Representative Robert Hale of New York labeled the Amendment 'an utter departure from every principle ever dreamed of by the men who framed our Constitution,' and warned that under it 'all State legislation, in its codes of civil and criminal jurisprudence and procedures … may be overridden, may be repealed or abolished, and the law of Congress established instead.' Senator William Stewart of Nevada likewise stated the Amendment would permit 'Congress to legislate fully upon all subjects affecting life, liberty, and property,' such that 'there would not be much left for the State Legislatures,' and would thereby 'work an entire change in our form of government.'"
- ^ PLR 16, p.1052
