Taxpayers can't sue over faith-based initiatives
A White House program to aid religious groups in providing social services survives a court test.
By Warren Richey | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the June 26, 2007 edition
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Washington - Taxpayers may not sue the White House to challenge alleged violations of the separation of church and state.
In a case that challenged part of President Bush's faith-based initiative program, the US Supreme Court on Monday dismissed the suit – closing an avenue for enforcing the First Amendment clause prohibiting any federal law "respecting an establishment of religion."
The effect of the 5-to-4 ruling is to somewhat insulate the White House from citizen scrutiny of executive-branch efforts to promote religion or assist the religious.
The ruling, the court's first establishment-clause decision under Chief Justice John Roberts, signals that a majority of justices are prepared to permit a greater sphere of interaction between church and state than were earlier courts.
No right to sue over executive-branch action
In deciding that taxpayers lack legal standing to bring their suit, Justice Samuel Alito said an existing precedent allows such legal action only when it challenges congressional appropriations that touch on the separation of church and state.
The precedent, a 1968 case called Flast v. Cohen, applies only to exercise of congressional power, not executive-branch actions, Justice Alito writes. "In the four decades since Flast was decided, we have never extended its narrow exception [allowing taxpayer lawsuits] to a purely discretionary executive branch expenditure," Alito writes.
Chief Justice John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia joined the majority opinion.
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