City of Boerne v. Flores

City of Boerne v. Flores, case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on June 25, 1997, ruled (6–3) that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993 exceeded the powers of Congress. According to the court, although the act was constitutional concerning federal actions, it could not be applied to the states.

In Boerne, Texas, the local Catholic church, a traditional adobe-style building, had become to small for its congregation, and in 1993 Patrick F. Flores, the archbishop of San Antonio, applied for a permit to enlarge the church. The city council denied the permit, citing an ordinance designed to preserve its historic district. Flores filed suit, claiming that the denial of the permit violated the RFRA, which states that “[g]overnment shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability.” The act applied to the federal and state governments.

The RFRA came three years after Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith (1990), in which the Supreme Court ruled that a state could deny unemployment benefits to members of the Native American Church who had been fired from their jobs because they ingested peyote for sacramental purposes; the court explained that laws that are officially neutral with respect to religion may be applied by the government. In response, Congress passed the RFRA, making it more difficult for governments to override religious freedoms. In extending the act to state governments, Congress relied on the Fourteenth Amendment’s Section 5, which gave it the power to enforce the provisions of that amendment; the Fourteenth Amendment requires due process before depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, and equal protection under the law.

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In Flores, a federal district court ruled for Boerne, holding that the RFRA was unconstitutional. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, however, reversed by finding the act constitutional.

The case was argued before the Supreme Court on February 19, 1997. It held that Congress does not have unfettered discretion to enact laws under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Congress has the power only to enforce the provisions, the court held, but may not change the right that it is enforcing. In effect, Congress has remedial power to prevent abuses under the Fourteenth Amendment. To illustrate this point, the court cited the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The court had upheld that act in various cases, finding that Congress had the right to enact strong “remedial and preventive measures” to correct “widespread and persisting racial discrimination” in the United States. In the case of the RFRA, however, the court found that the act’s legislative history lacked “examples of any instances of generally applicable laws passed because of religious bigotry in the past 40 years.” Furthermore, the court found that the act was “so out of proportion to a supposed remedial or preventive object that it cannot be understood as responsive to, or designed to prevent, unconstitutional behavior.”

In addition, the court found that the RFRA was too broad and would lead to intrusion at every level of government. The court wondered how it would determine whether governmental action substantially burdened a person’s religious freedom. The court concluded that RFRA was “a considerable congressional intrusion into the States’ traditional prerogatives and general authority” and was thus unconstitutional when applied to states. The decision of the Fifth Circuit was reversed.