Lawyers e-Journal
Thursday, Jun. 28, 2007
Four opinions issued by the U.S. Supreme Court this week
The U.S. Supreme Court issued four long-awaited rulings this week. All four cases were decided by 5-to-4 votes, with both of President George W. Bush's picks -- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who replaced the late William Rehnquist, and Justice Samuel Alito, who was confirmed after Sandra Day O'Connor retired -- siding with the majority.
In Hein v. Freedom From Religion Foundation, the Court stopped an atheist group's lawsuit against President Bush's faith-based initiative, ruling that the plaintiffs do not have standing.
The plaintiffs in the case, including taxpayers from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, had argued that the funding of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives violated the established separation of church and state, putting the government in the position of steering hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to groups with strong religious affiliations. The plaintiffs argued that Bush was spending taxpayer funds to hold conferences at which religious groups were urged to apply for federal grants.
But the Supreme Court, while not ruling directly on the First Amendment church-state issue, found that the taxpayers who sued the government cannot do so simply because they pay taxes.
In Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., the Court ruled that a Wisconsin anti-abortion group should have been allowed to run ads before Election Day, thus undercutting a restriction in the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.
The group wanted to run ads in 2004 on the issue of Senate filibustering of Bush's judicial nominees. Because the ads mentioned Wisconsin's senators by name -- and because one of them, Democrat Russ Feingold, was up for re-election -- the ads would have run afoul of the law. The Wisconsin group went to court seeking an injunction to protect the ads from being banned.
A three-judge panel in the District of Columbia said the advertisements were "genuine issue ads" that could not be banned. The FEC appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Court said that the 2003 law's ban on pre-election ads that mention candidates by name and are paid for directly by corporations and unions was unconstitutional -- at least as it was applied to the advertisements at issue in the case before it. The ban applied during the 30 days before a primary and the 60 days before a general election.
Roberts devised a new standard that would allow such ads to be banned only if the ad is "susceptible of no other interpretation than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate."
The Court tightened limits on student speech, ruling against a high school student and his "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner in Morse v. Frederick.
Joseph Frederick displayed his homemade sign in 2002, as the Olympic torch made its way through Juneau, Alaska, en route to the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
His principal said the phrase was a pro-drug message that had no place at a school-sanctioned event. Frederick denied that he was advocating for drug use. Frederick said the banner was a nonsensical message. He intended the banner to proclaim his right to say anything at all. The principal suspended Frederick, prompting a federal civil rights lawsuit.
"The message on Frederick's banner is cryptic," Roberts said. "But [the principal] thought the banner would be interpreted by those viewing it as promoting illegal drug use, and that interpretation is plainly a reasonable one."
Students in public schools don't have the same rights as adults, but neither do they leave their constitutional protections at the schoolhouse gate, as the Court said in a landmark speech-rights ruling from Vietnam era. The Court has limited what students can do in subsequent cases, saying they may not be disruptive or lewd or interfere with a school's basic educational mission. This week’s ruling holds that schools may prohibit student expression that can be interpreted as advocating drug use.
Finally, the Court limited the obligation of federal agencies under the Endangered Species Act to ensure that their actions do not jeopardize threatened or endangered species that are federally listed.
In two combined cases - EPA v. Defenders of Wildlife and National Association of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife – the Court reversed an appeals court decision that required the U.S. EPA to consider the protection of listed species before handing Clean Water Act permitting authority over to the states.
The Clean Water Act requires that the EPA transfer permitting powers to the states if nine criteria are met. The Endangered Species Act requires that a federal agency must consult with other relevant agencies to ensure its actions do not jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or threatened species.
The question resolved by the Court ruling is whether the ESA consultation requirement is effectively a tenth criterion on which the transfer of Clean Water Act permitting power must be based. The majority concluded that it is not.