FRINK Linked Data Fragments server

Matches in SemOpenAlex for { <https://semopenalex.org/work/W1537440888> ?p ?o ?g. }

• W1537440888 startingPage "865" @default.
• W1537440888 abstract "Many commentators view City of Boerne v. Flores,(1) in which a divided Supreme Court struck down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA),(2) as a major defeat in the battle for religious freedom in the United States.(3) Be that as it may, Flores is also an opportunity to begin a discussion on another issue entirely: the appropriate relationship between dissenting Justices and majority opinions. Should a Justice who disagrees with a majority of the Court nevertheless accept the majority's holding as defining the law for purposes of establishing a baseline for subsequent questions? I. THE BASELINE DILEMMA In order to understand the question I will address, some brief background on Flores is necessary. Prior to 1990, the Supreme Court interpreted the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution--applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment--to require the government to accommodate religious beliefs by granting exemptions to those with religious objections to generally applicable laws, unless the government could show a compelling interest. In 1990, in Employment Division v. Smith,(4) the Supreme Court abandoned this doctrine, concluding that neutral, generally applicable laws even if they burdened religious practices--need only serve a legitimate state interest. In 1993, Congress, relying on the power granted to it by Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment (Section 5),(5) enacted RFRA by an overwhelming bipartisan vote.(6) RFRA reinstated the compelling interest test for any state or federal statute that substantially burdened religious exercise. The question before the Court in Flores was whether Congress's Section 5 powers were broad enough to support RFRA. Justice Kennedy's majority opinion concluded that in attempting to protect rights beyond those covered by the Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Smith, Congress exceeded the powers granted to it by the Constitution. Justice O'Connor issued a passionate dissent in Flores, arguing that the Court should both uphold RFRA and overrule Smith, the case that provoked the enactment of RFRA in the first place. We are left in no doubt about Justice O'Connor's views: she explicitly agreed with the majority that Congress's Section 5 powers are limited, and indeed agreed that were Smith the correct interpretation of the Free Exercise Clause, Congress would have no power to enact RFRA. Nevertheless, she dissented from the invalidation of RFRA on the ground that Smith was incorrectly decided even though there are, at most, only four votes for that proposition.(7) This constellation of conclusions--that Smith deprives Congress of the power to enact RFRA but that Smith is wrong--gives rise to a question that Justice O'Connor never explicitly answered. She agreed that Congress is limited to implementing the rights actually contained in the Fourteenth Amendment, as judicially defined. But should those rights be defined by the Court as a whole or by each individual Justice? To put it another way, Justice O'Connor's own view is that the congressional interpretation of free exercise rights is the constitutionally correct one, even though a majority of the Court disagrees. As far as Justice O'Connor is concerned, then, is Congress bound by the latter view or may it rely on the former? In one sense, this is asking whether the Court is a unitary entity, which can speak with only one voice, or a collection of individual Justices voting their individual consciences. If the Court is a unitary entity, then perhaps there are times when an individual Justice ought to vote against her own conscience. Whether, and when, she ought to do so, is the subject of this Essay. Notice that only a Justice who both agrees with Justice Kennedy's narrow interpretation of Section 5 and disagrees with Smith is entangled in this question. If Justice O'Connor disagreed with Justice Kennedy's view of Section 5, for example, then she could easily dissent without raising the question of whose interpretation of the Constitution counts: even if Smith is correct, she might have written, Congress did not exceed its Section 5 powers in enacting this prophylactic statute. …" @default.
• W1537440888 created "2016-06-24" @default.
• W1537440888 creator A5066147715 @default.
• W1537440888 date "1998-02-01" @default.
• W1537440888 modified "2023-09-23" @default.
• W1537440888 title "Justice O'Connor's Dilemma: The Baseline Question" @default.
• W1537440888 hasPublicationYear "1998" @default.
• W1537440888 type Work @default.
• W1537440888 sameAs 1537440888 @default.
• W1537440888 citedByCount "1" @default.
• W1537440888 crossrefType "journal-article" @default.
• W1537440888 hasAuthorship W1537440888A5066147715 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C104636517 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C11413529 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C144024400 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C17319257 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C17744445 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C199539241 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C2776154427 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C2776211767 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C2778219340 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C2778272461 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C2778323131 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C2779160553 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C2994536602 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C41008148 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C48103436 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C56617239 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConcept C94625758 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C104636517 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C11413529 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C144024400 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C17319257 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C17744445 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C199539241 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C2776154427 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C2776211767 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C2778219340 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C2778272461 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C2778323131 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C2779160553 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C2994536602 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C41008148 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C48103436 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C56617239 @default.
• W1537440888 hasConceptScore W1537440888C94625758 @default.
• W1537440888 hasIssue "3" @default.
• W1537440888 hasLocation W15374408881 @default.
• W1537440888 hasOpenAccess W1537440888 @default.
• W1537440888 hasPrimaryLocation W15374408881 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1507998874 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1514961326 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1518487147 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1548748199 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1552475530 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1564740003 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1567596149 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1572756778 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1584653053 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1593627165 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W1607687150 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W2269683339 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W3046228551 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W3111622719 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W3122030078 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W3123849122 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W3125951956 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W3129304847 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W42965688 @default.
• W1537440888 hasRelatedWork W762369378 @default.
• W1537440888 hasVolume "39" @default.
• W1537440888 isParatext "false" @default.
• W1537440888 isRetracted "false" @default.
• W1537440888 magId "1537440888" @default.
• W1537440888 workType "article" @default.