Latest news with #Sotomayor
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Religion cases spark both unanimity and division at Supreme Court
Religious rights are sparking both unanimity and deep divisions on the Supreme Court this term, with one major decision still to come. On Thursday, all nine justices sided with Catholic Charities Bureau in its tax fight with Wisconsin. But weeks earlier, the court's 4-4 deadlock handed those same religious interests a loss by refusing to greenlight the nation's first religious charter school. Now, advocates are turning their attention to the other major religion case still pending this term, which concerns whether parents have the First Amendment right to opt-out their children from instruction including books with LGBTQ themes. 'The court has been using its Religion Clause cases over the past few years to send the message that everything doesn't have to be quite so polarized and quite so everybody at each other's throats,' said Mark Rienzi, the president and CEO of Becket, a religious legal group that represents both the parents and Catholic Charities. The trio of cases reflect a new burst of activity on the Supreme Court's religion docket, a major legacy of Chief Justice John Roberts' tenure. Research by Lee Epstein, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, found the Roberts Court has ruled in favor of religious organizations over 83 percent of the time, a significant jump from previous eras. The decisions have oftentimes protected Christian traditions, a development that critics view as a rightward shift away from a focus on protecting non-mainstream religions. But on Thursday, the court emerged unanimous. The nine justices all agreed that Wisconsin violated the First Amendment in denying Catholic Charities a religious exemption from paying state unemployment taxes. Wisconsin's top court denied the exemption by finding the charity wasn't primarily religious, saying it could only qualify if it was trying to proselytize people. Catholic Charities stressed that the Catholic faith forbids misusing works of charity for proselytism. Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored Thursday's majority opinion finding Wisconsin unconstitutionally established a government preference for some religious denominations over others. 'There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one,' Sotomayor wrote. The fact that Sotomayor, one of the court's three Democratic-appointed justices, wrote the opinion heightened the sense of unity. 'She's voted with us in several other cases, too, and I think it just shows that it is not the partisan issue that people sometimes try to make it out to be,' said Rienzi. However, Sotomayor's opinion notably did not address Catholic Charities' other arguments, including those related to church autonomy that Justice Clarence Thomas, one the court's leading conservatives, endorsed in a solo, separate opinion. Ryan Gardner, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, which filed a brief backing Catholic Charities, similarly called the unanimity an 'encouraging' sign. 'If they can find a way to do that, they want to do that. And that's why I think you have the opinion written the way that it was. It was written that way so that every justice could feel comfortable signing off on it,' said Gardner. Supporters and critics of the court's decision agree it still poses repercussions on cases well beyond the tax context — and even into the culture wars. Perhaps most immediately, the battle at the Supreme Court will shift from unemployment taxes to abortion. The justices have a pending request from religious groups, also represented by Becket, to review New York's mandate that employers' health care plans cover abortions. The regulation exempts religious organizations only if they inculcate religious values, meaning many faith-based charities must still follow the mandate. And for the First Liberty Institute, it believes Thursday's decision bolsters its legal fights in the lower courts. It represents an Ohio church that serves the homeless and an Arizona church that provides food distribution, both embroiled in legal battles with local municipalities that implicate whether the ministries are religious enough. Thursday's decision is not the first time the Supreme Court has unanimously handed a win to religious rights advocates. In 2023, the First Liberty Institute successfully represented a Christian U.S. Postal Service worker who requested a religious accommodation to not work on Sundays. And two years earlier, the court in a unanimous judgment ruled Philadelphia violated the Free Exercise Clause by refusing to refer children to a Catholic adoption agency because it would not certify same-sex couples to be foster parents. 'People thought that was a very narrow decision at the time, but the way it has sort of been applied since then, it has really reshaped a lot of the way that we think about Free Exercise cases,' said Gardner. It's not always kumbaya, however. Last month, the Supreme Court split evenly on a highly anticipated religious case that concerned whether Oklahoma could establish the nation's first publicly funded religious charter school. The 4-4 deadlock meant the effort fizzled. Released just three weeks after the justices' initial vote behind closed doors, the decision spanned one sentence. 'The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,' it reads. Though the deadlock means supporters of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School are left without a green light, they are hoping they will prevail soon enough. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's third appointee to the court, recused from the St. Isidore case, which many court watchers believe stemmed from her friendship with a professor at Notre Dame, whose religious liberty clinic represented St. Isidore. But Barrett could participate in a future case — providing the crucial fifth vote — that presents the same legal question, which poses consequential implications for public education. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court still has one major religion case left this term. The justices are reviewing whether Montgomery County, Md., must provide parents an option to opt-out their elementary-aged children from instruction with books that include LGBTQ themes. The group of Muslim, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox parents suing say it substantially burdens their First Amendment rights under the Free Exercise Clause. At oral arguments, the conservative majority appeared sympathetic with the parent's plea as the court's three liberal justices raised concerns about where to draw the line. 'Probably, it will be a split decision,' said Gardner, whose group has filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of parents in California. But he cautioned, 'you never know where some of the justices will line up.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Religion cases spark both unanimity and division at Supreme Court
Religious rights are sparking both unanimity and deep divisions on the Supreme Court this term, with one major decision still to come. On Thursday, all nine justices sided with Catholic Charities Bureau in its tax fight with Wisconsin. But weeks earlier, the court's 4-4 deadlock handed those same religious interests a loss by refusing to greenlight the nation's first religious charter school. Now, advocates are turning their attention to the other major religion case still pending this term, which concerns whether parents have the First Amendment right to opt-out their children from instruction including books with LGBTQ themes. 'The court has been using its Religion Clause cases over the past few years to send the message that everything doesn't have to be quite so polarized and quite so everybody at each other's throats,' said Mark Rienzi, the president and CEO of Becket, a religious legal group that represents both the parents and Catholic Charities. The trio of cases reflect a new burst of activity on the Supreme Court's religion docket, a major legacy of Chief Justice John Roberts' tenure. Research by Lee Epstein, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, found the Roberts Court has ruled in favor of religious organizations over 83 percent of the time, a significant jump from previous eras. The decisions have oftentimes protected Christian traditions, a development that critics view as a rightward shift away from a focus on protecting non-mainstream religions. But on Thursday, the court emerged unanimous. The nine justices all agreed that Wisconsin violated the First Amendment in denying Catholic Charities a religious exemption from paying state unemployment taxes. Wisconsin's top court denied the exemption by finding the charity wasn't primarily religious, saying it could only qualify if it was trying to proselytize people. Catholic Charities stressed that the Catholic faith forbids misusing works of charity for proselytism. Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored Thursday's majority opinion finding Wisconsin unconstitutionally established a government preference for some religious denominations over others. 'There may be hard calls to make in policing that rule, but this is not one,' Sotomayor wrote. The fact that Sotomayor, one of the court's three Democratic-appointed justices, wrote the opinion heightened the sense of unity. 'She's voted with us in several other cases, too, and I think it just shows that it is not the partisan issue that people sometimes try to make it out to be,' said Rienzi. However, Sotomayor's opinion notably did not address Catholic Charities' other arguments, including those related to church autonomy that Justice Clarence Thomas, one the court's leading conservatives, endorsed in a solo, separate opinion. Ryan Gardner, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, which filed a brief backing Catholic Charities, similarly called the unanimity an 'encouraging' sign. 'If they can find a way to do that, they want to do that. And that's why I think you have the opinion written the way that it was. It was written that way so that every justice could feel comfortable signing off on it,' said Gardner. Supporters and critics of the court's decision agree it still poses repercussions on cases well beyond the tax context — and even into the culture wars. Perhaps most immediately, the battle at the Supreme Court will shift from unemployment taxes to abortion. The justices have a pending request from religious groups, also represented by Becket, to review New York's mandate that employers' health care plans cover abortions. The regulation exempts religious organizations only if they inculcate religious values, meaning many faith-based charities must still follow the mandate. And for the First Liberty Institute, it believes Thursday's decision bolsters its legal fights in the lower courts. It represents an Ohio church that serves the homeless and an Arizona church that provides food distribution, both embroiled in legal battles with local municipalities that implicate whether the ministries are religious enough. Thursday's decision is not the first time the Supreme Court has unanimously handed a win to religious rights advocates. In 2023, the First Liberty Institute successfully represented a Christian U.S. Postal Service worker who requested a religious accommodation to not work on Sundays. And two years earlier, the court in a unanimous judgment ruled Philadelphia violated the Free Exercise Clause by refusing to refer children to a Catholic adoption agency because it would not certify same-sex couples to be foster parents. 'People thought that was a very narrow decision at the time, but the way it has sort of been applied since then, it has really reshaped a lot of the way that we think about Free Exercise cases,' said Gardner. It's not always kumbaya, however. Last month, the Supreme Court split evenly on a highly anticipated religious case that concerned whether Oklahoma could establish the nation's first publicly funded religious charter school. The 4-4 deadlock meant the effort fizzled. Released just three weeks after the justices' initial vote behind closed doors, the decision spanned one sentence. 'The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court,' it reads. Though the deadlock means supporters of St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School are left without a green light, they are hoping they will prevail soon enough. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, President Trump's third appointee to the court, recused from the St. Isidore case, which many court watchers believe stemmed from her friendship with a professor at Notre Dame, whose religious liberty clinic represented St. Isidore. But Barrett could participate in a future case — providing the crucial fifth vote — that presents the same legal question, which poses consequential implications for public education. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court still has one major religion case left this term. The justices are reviewing whether Montgomery County, Md., must provide parents an option to opt-out their elementary-aged children from instruction with books that include LGBTQ themes. The group of Muslim, Roman Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox parents suing say it substantially burdens their First Amendment rights under the Free Exercise Clause. At oral arguments, the conservative majority appeared sympathetic with the parent's plea as the court's three liberal justices raised concerns about where to draw the line. 'Probably, it will be a split decision,' said Gardner, whose group has filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of parents in California. But he cautioned, 'you never know where some of the justices will line up.'
Al Jazeera
5 days ago
- Business
- Al Jazeera
US Supreme Court grants DOGE access to sensitive Social Security data
The United States Supreme Court has sided with the administration of President Donald Trump in two cases about government records — and who should have access to them. On Friday, the six-member conservative majority overturned a lower court's ruling that limited the kinds of data that Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) could access through the Social Security Administration (SSA). In a separate case, the majority also decided that DOGE was not required to turn over records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), a government transparency law. In both cases, the Supreme Court's three left-leaning justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan — opposed the majority's decision. DOGE has been at the forefront of Trump's campaign to reimagine the federal government and cut down on bureaucratic 'bloat'. Unveiled on November 13, just eight days after Trump's re-election, DOGE was designed to 'dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies'. At first, it was unclear how DOGE would interact with the executive branch: whether it would be an advisory panel, a new department or a nongovernmental entity. But on January 20, when Trump was sworn in for his second term, he announced that the existing US Digital Service — a technology initiative founded by former President Barack Obama — would be reorganised to create DOGE. The government efficiency panel has since led a wide-scale overhaul of the federal government, implementing mass layoffs and seeking to shutter entities like the US Agency for International Development (USAID). It also advertised cost-savings it had achieved or alleged fraud it had uncovered, though many of those claims have been contradicted or questioned by journalists and experts. In addition, DOGE's sweeping changes to the federal government made it the subject of criticism and concern, particularly as it sought greater access to sensitive data and systems. Up until last week, DOGE was led by Elon Musk, a billionaire and tech entrepreneur who had been a prominent backer of Trump's re-election bid. Musk and Trump, however, have had a public rupture following the end of the billionaire's tenure as a 'special government employee' in the White House. That falling-out has left DOGE's future uncertain. One of DOGE's controversial initiatives has been its push to access Social Security data, in the name of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. Early in Trump's second term, both the president and Musk repeated misleading claims that Social Security payments were being made to millions of people listed as 150 years old or older. But fact-checkers quickly refuted that allegation. Instead, they pointed out that the Social Security Administration has implemented a code to automatically stop payments to anyone listed as alive and more than 115 years old. They also pointed out that the COBOL programming language flags incomplete entries in the Social Security system with birthdates set back 150 years, possibly prompting the Trump administration's confusion. Less than 1 percent of Social Security payments are made erroneously, according to a 2024 inspector general report. Still, Trump officials criticised the Social Security Administration, with Musk dubbing it 'the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time' and calling for its elimination. In March, US District Judge Ellen Lipton Hollander blocked DOGE from having unfettered access to Social Security data, citing the sensitive nature of such information. Social Security numbers, for instance, are key to verifying a person's identity in the US, and the release of such numbers could endanger individual privacy. Lipton Hollander ruled that DOGE had 'never identified or articulated even a single reason for which the DOGE Team needs unlimited access to SSA's entire record systems'. She questioned why DOGE had not sought a 'more tailored' approach. 'Instead, the government simply repeats its incantation of a need to modernize the system and uncover fraud,' she wrote in her ruling. 'Its method of doing so is tantamount to hitting a fly with a sledgehammer.' The judge's ruling, however, did allow DOGE to view anonymised data, without personally identifying information. The Trump administration, nevertheless, appealed that decision to the Supreme Court, arguing that Judge Lipton Hollander had exceeded her authority in blocking DOGE's access. The Supreme Court granted its emergency petition on Friday, lifting Lipton Hollander's temporary restrictions on the data in an unsigned decision. But Justice Brown Jackson issued a blistering dissent (PDF), suggesting that the Supreme Court was willing to break norms to assist a presidency that was unwilling to let legal challenges play out in lower courts. 'Once again, this Court dons its emergency-responder gear, rushes to the scene, and uses its equitable power to fan the flames rather than extinguish them,' Brown Jackson wrote. She argued that the Trump administration had not established that any 'irreparable harm' would occur if DOGE were temporarily blocked from accessing Social Security data. But by granting the Trump administration's emergency petition, she said the court was 'jettisoning careful judicial decision-making and creating grave privacy risks for millions of Americans in the process'. The second Supreme Court decision on Friday concerned whether DOGE itself had to surrender documents under federal transparency laws. The question was raised as part of a lawsuit brought by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a government watchdog group. It argued that DOGE's sweeping powers suggested it should be subject to laws like FOIA, just like any other executive agency. But CREW also alleged that the ambiguity surrounding DOGE's structures had kept it insulated from outside probes. 'While publicly available information indicates that DOGE is subject to FOIA, the lack of clarity on DOGE's authority leaves that an open question,' CREW said in a statement. The watchdog group sought to compel DOGE to provide information about its inner workings. While a US district judge had sided with CREW's request for records in April, the Supreme Court on Friday paused that lower court's decision (PDF). It sent the case back to a court of appeals for further consideration, with instructions that the April order be narrowed. 'Any inquiry into whether an entity is an agency for the purposes of the Freedom of Information Act cannot turn on the entity's ability to persuade,' the Supreme Court's conservative majority ruled. It also said that the courts needed to exercise 'deference and restraint' regarding 'internal' executive communications.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
U.S. Supreme Court rules Wisconsin law makes Catholic Charities exempt from unemployment system
Unemployment benefits application (photo by Getty Images) This is a developing story and will be updated. In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Catholic Charities organization in Wisconsin doesn't have to take part in the Wisconsin unemployment insurance (UI) system. The ruling overturns a 4-3 Wisconsin Supreme Court decision issued in March 2024 that declared the work of Catholic Charities Bureau Inc. of the Superior Diocese of the Catholic Church doesn't get a pass from Wisconsin's UI law on religious grounds. The Wisconsin ruling, written by Justice Anne Walsh Bradley, declared that the Catholic Charities work is 'secular in nature' and that the agency and its subsidiary organizations that took part in the case 'are not operated primarily for religious purposes' as defined in the UI law's religious exemption. In Thursday's ruling, Justice Sonya Sotomayor wrote for the Court that arguments the Wisconsin high court majority made amounted to making preferences of one religious denomination over another. Her ruling noted that the church offers its own unemployment compensation program for laid-off workers and dismissed the suggestion that the organizations were 'more likely to leave their employees without unemployment benefits.' The Wisconsin ruling held that the agencies' work was not religious in nature because they didn't attempt to preach the Catholic faith to participants and did not serve only Catholics. 'Petitioners' Catholic faith, however, bars them from satisfying those criteria,' Sotomayor wrote. The ruling quoted from the dissent by Justice Rebecca Bradley in the Wisconsin decision. 'Wisconsin's exemption,' Sotomayor wrote, 'as interpreted by its Supreme Court, thus grants a denominational preference by explicitly differentiating between religions based on theological practices. Indeed, petitioners' eligibility for the exemption ultimately turns on inherently religious choices (namely, whether to proselytize or serve only co-religionists).' The Wisconsin UI law exempts all churches, church conventions or church associations 'without differentiating between employees actually involved in religious works' and those who are not, Sotomayor wrote. Justice Clarence Thomas, while joining in the unanimous opinion, wrote a separate concurrence stating that because the Wisconsin ruling did not defer to the Bishop of Superior's assertion that Catholic Charities and its affiliates are 'an arm of the Diocese, the Wisconsin Supreme Court violated the church autonomy doctrine.' In a separate concurrence Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson signaled how states could ensure that nonprofit employees of religiously associated organizations are covered by UI — by focusing on the work involved rather than its underlying motivations to determine who is and who is not exempt. When the federal law was revised in 1970 to include nonprofit employees in state UI programs, Congress exempted certain church-affiliated employees. The goal, Jackson wrote, was to avoid the state getting involved in a dispute 'over the sufficiency of a fired employee's prayers or the accuracy of their scriptural teaching.' The intent of Congress was to exempt 'a narrow category of church-affiliated entities' that could produce such an entanglement 'precisely because their work involves preparing individuals for religious life,' Jackson wrote. She concluded: 'It is perfectly consistent with the opinion the Court hands down today for States to align their [federally-based] religious-purposes exemptions with Congress's true focus.' 24-154_2b82 SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Vox
6 days ago
- Politics
- Vox
The Supreme Court's blessedly narrow decision about religion in the workplace, explained
is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the decline of liberal democracy in the United States. He received a JD from Duke University and is the author of two books on the Supreme Court. In 2018, shortly before Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation shifted the Supreme Court drastically to the right, Democratic Justice Elena Kagan laid out her strategy to keep her Court from becoming too ideological or too partisan. The secret, she said, is to take 'big questions and make them small.' Since then, Kagan and her Democratic colleagues have had mixed success persuading their colleagues to decide cases narrowly when they could hand right-wing litigants a sweeping victory. The Court has largely transformed its approach to religion, for example, though it does occasionally hand down religion cases that end less with a bang than with a whimper. SCOTUS, Explained Get the latest developments on the US Supreme Court from senior correspondent Ian Millhiser. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Catholic Charities v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission will likely be remembered as such a whimper. The opinion is unanimous, and it is authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, one of Kagan's few fellow Democratic justices. The case could have ended in a sweeping decision that severely undermined the rights of many workers. Instead, Sotomayor's opinion focuses on a very narrow distinction between how Wisconsin law treats some religious groups as compared to others. Catholic Charities involved a Wisconsin law that exempts some nonprofits from paying unemployment taxes. This exemption applies only to employers that operate 'primarily for religious purposes.' Wisconsin's state supreme court determined that a 'religious purpose' includes activities like holding worship services or providing religious education, but it does not include secular services like feeding the poor, even if those secular activities are motivated by religion. Related The Supreme Court is leading a Christian conservative revolution The upshot is that Catholic Charities — an organization that is run by the Catholic Church but focuses primarily on secular charitable work — was not exempt from paying unemployment taxes. Sotomayor's decision reverses the state supreme court, so Catholic Charities will now receive an exemption. The Court largely avoids a fight over when businesses with a religious identity can ignore the law In a previous era, the Court was very cautious about permitting religious organizations to claim exemptions, in part because doing so would give some businesses 'an advantage over their competitors.' Such exemptions could also potentially permit employers with a religious identity to exploit their workers. In Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation v. Secretary of Labor (1985), for example, the Court considered a religious cult that operated a wide range of commercial businesses. These businesses paid no cash salaries or wages, although they did claim to give workers food, clothing, and shelter. The cult sought an exemption from minimum wage laws and similar workplace protections, but the Court disagreed. A too-broad decision in Catholic Charities could have potentially undermined decisions like Alamo Foundation, by giving some employers a broad right to ignore laws protecting their workers. But Sotomayor's opinion reads like it was crafted to hand Catholic Charities the narrowest possible victory. Under the state supreme court's decision in Catholic Charities, Sotomayor writes, a church-run nonprofit that does entirely secular charity work may not receive an exemption from paying unemployment taxes. But a virtually identical nonprofit that does the exact same work but also engages in 'proselytization' or limits its services to members of the same faith would receive an exemption. This distinction, Sotomayor says, violates the Supreme Court's long-standing rule that the government 'may not 'officially prefe[r]' one religious denomination over another.' The state may potentially require all charities to pay unemployment taxes. But it cannot treat religious charities that seek to convert people, or that limit their services to members of one faith, differently from religious charities that do not do this. In Sotomayor's words, an organization's 'eligibility for the exemption ultimately turns on inherently religious choices (namely, whether to proselytize or serve only co-religionists).' The crux of Sotomayor's opinion is that the decision whether to try to convert people, or whether to serve non-Catholics, is an inherently 'theological' choice. And states cannot treat different religious organizations differently because of their theological choices. Unfortunately, Sotomayor's opinion, which is a brief 15 pages, does not really define the term 'theological.' So it is likely that future courts will have to wrestle with whether other laws that treat some organizations differently do so because of theological differences or for some other reason. It's not hard to imagine a cult like the one in Alamo Foundation claiming that it has a theological objection to paying the minimum wage. But the Catholic Charities opinion also does not explicitly undermine decisions like Alamo Foundation. Nor does it embrace a more sweeping approach proposed by dissenting justices in the Wisconsin Supreme Court, who argued that nonprofits whose 'motivations are religious' may claim an exemption — regardless of what that nonprofit actually does.
