Saturday, December 02, 2006
Supreme Court to hear case on "faith-based" financing
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Friday that it would hear Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation, the first challenge of the Bush Administration's extension of government aid to "faith-based" public interest organizations.
The interesting thing about Hein is that the basis of the appeal is not the Establishment Clause, as one might suspect. No, this case involves taxpayer standing - the ability of any citizen taxpayer to bring suit against the government for spending their money in an unapproved way, which in this case is through the funding of organizations with a religious bent that perform social work within communities.
SCOTUS hasn't traditionally looked kindly towards taxpayer standing. I would be surprised if it did so in this case.
MORE: SCOTUS Blog
The interesting thing about Hein is that the basis of the appeal is not the Establishment Clause, as one might suspect. No, this case involves taxpayer standing - the ability of any citizen taxpayer to bring suit against the government for spending their money in an unapproved way, which in this case is through the funding of organizations with a religious bent that perform social work within communities.
SCOTUS hasn't traditionally looked kindly towards taxpayer standing. I would be surprised if it did so in this case.
MORE: SCOTUS Blog
Labels: Freedom of Religion, SCOTUS
Permalink posted by Rob Huddleston @ 12:01 AM 
