U.S. Supreme Court decision - Essay Example

?Full 29 July ACSTO Supreme Court Case and the Ripple Effect In April, advocates for parental choice in education scored a major victory in the precedent-setting case before the United States Supreme Court, American Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn. The court ruled by a narrow 5-4 margin that the Arizona program promoting school choice can continue ? dismissing a lawsuit waged by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of taxpayers who disliked the program. The ruling favored arguments made by the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative legal organization that defended ACSTO over the years. The concurring justices found that taxpayers have no standing to challenge the program because the contributions going toward tax credits are private funds ? not government funds (Liptak, 2011). ACSTO, like many other programs in the U.S., gives state residents the ability to receive a tax credit for contributions to private organizations that provide private schools with scholarships. This ruling has wide-ranging effects across the governmental, political, and structural spheres of America. The ACSTO decision will greatly impact the way state governmental entities deal with programs similar to ACSTO across the country. Now that such programs will be recognized as legitimate, due to U.S. Supreme Court precedent, state institutions will no longer be able to easily keep state residents from freely donating their money to organizations that help parents send their children to the private schools of their choice. Also, elected, appointed, and/or career policymakers, such as the U.S. Supreme Court Justices who presided over this case ? as well as lawmakers, senators, governors and mayors ? will be making more and more decisions based on the precedent set in this case regarding the use of private funds donated to generate tax credits. Now, bureaucracies will not be allowed to strike down such contributions within the states that adopt the precedent set in Arizona. On the political level, the ACSTO decision has many far-reaching ramifications. Political parties, interest groups, and unions that are generally opposed to religious organizations receiving funding in the form of tax credits generated from private contributions will have their hands tied when opposing such programs. Leftist social movements opposed to private schools will now have a more difficult time shutting down programs resembling ACSTO. Also, with the case’s national attention, 2012 presidential election campaigns and voters agreeing with the decision will more likely take a stance on the parental choice issue. With the extensive media coverage, public opinion was likely swayed in one way or the other. Many were likely swayed by the executive director of the special interest group Americans United for the Separation, Rev. Barry Lynn, who said that the court “has slammed the courthouse door in the face of Americans who don’t want their tax dollars to subsidize religion (Biskupic, 2011). On the other hand, those with conservative ideals were likely influenced by media statements made by Tim Keller, executive director of the Institute of Justice’s Arizona chapter, who saw the victory as rebuffing “efforts by school choice opponents to use the courts to halt programs that empower families to chose a private school education if that is where their child’s needs will be best served (Biskupic, 2011).” The political climate on education has undergone a shift since the decision. Furthermore, the structural forces that hold our nation together, such as the U.S. Constitution, state constitutions, state laws, our federalist system, and the economy, can all be affected in some way by the ACSTO ruling. To accommodate such program funding, federal and state constitutions can be amended, laws can be changed, and the economy can be reshaped, as tax credits up to $500 for donations to groups funding religious schools redistributes much money (Weiss, 2011). The decision could also spur a demographic shift, as families receiving scholarships will likely move closer to private schools. Now, school choice is quickly becoming part of the political culture, and with the publicity it received, countries abroad will be more prone to consider such programs. Supreme Court rulings, such as the one in the ACSTO lawsuit, greatly impact the governmental, political, and structural dynamics of the nation. On each level, new decisions in the higher court trigger chain reactions that institute change for better or for worse. The ACSTO ruling has helped many conservative interests move forward, while posing setbacks for numerous leftist entities from coast to coast. When the high court makes decisions concerning tax credits or school vouchers programs – or other important societal issues ? major waves of change hit every city and state both publically and privately. With every ruling comes change, and it is up to this nation’s people ? whether as leaders, organizations, voters, or private citizens ? to use that change to make a better nation. Works Cited Biscupic, Joan. “Supreme Court leaves in place Ariz. school tax break.” USA Today. USA Today Newspaper, 5 April 2011. Web. 7 July 2011. Liptak, Adam. “Supreme Court Allows Tax Credit for Religious Tuition.” The New York Times. The New York Times Newspaper, 4 April 2011. Web. 28 July 2011. Weiss, Debra Cassens. “Supreme Court Tosses Religious School Tax Credit Case on Standing Grounds.” ABA Journal Law News Now. ABA Journal, 4 April 2011. Web. 28 July 2011. Supreme Court Allows Tax Credit for Religious Tuition By ADAM LIPTAK Published: April 4, 2011 WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday let stand an Arizona program that aids religious schools, saying in a 5-to-4 decision that the plaintiffs had no standing to challenge it. Related in Opinion Editorial: Justice Kagan Dissents(April 10, 2011) The program itself is novel and complicated, and allowing it to go forward may be of no particular moment. But by closing the courthouse door to some kinds of suits that claim violations of the First Amendment’s ban on government establishment of religion, the court’s ruling in the case may be quite consequential. Justice Elena Kagan, in her first dissent, said the majority had laid waste to the doctrine of “taxpayer standing,” which allows suits from people who object to having tax money spent on religious matters. “The court’s opinion,” Justice Kagan wrote, “offers a road map — more truly, just a one-step instruction — to any government that wishes to insulate its financing of religious activity from legal challenge.” The decision divided the court along the usual ideological lines, with the three other more liberal members — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor — joining the dissent. The Arizona program gives taxpayers there a dollar-for-dollar state tax credit of up to $500 for donations to private “student tuition organizations.” The organizations are permitted to limit the scholarships they offer to schools of a given religion, and many of them do. The usual rule is that plaintiffs who merely object to how the government spends their taxes do not have standing because they have not suffered a sufficiently direct injury. But the Supreme Court made an exception for religious spending by the government in 1968 in Flast v. Cohen. The issue that divided the majority and the dissenters on Monday was whether granting a tax credit was the functional equivalent of collecting and spending tax money. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the two things were very different. “Awarding some citizens a tax credit allows other citizens to retain control over their own funds in accordance with their own consciences,” Justice Kennedy wrote for himself, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. The plaintiffs’ position, Justice Kennedy wrote, “assumes that income should be treated as if it were government property even if it has not come into the tax collector’s hands.” But, he added, “private bank accounts cannot be equated with the Arizona State Treasury.” Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Thomas, wrote separately to say he would have gone further and eliminated the exception carved out in the Flast decision entirely. In her dissent in the case, Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, No. 09-987, Justice Kagan said the majority’s position was an elevation of form over substance. “Taxpayers experience the same injury for standing purposes,” she wrote, “whether government subsidization of religion takes the form of a cash grant or a tax measure.” She offered examples. “Suppose a state desires to reward Jews — by, say, $500 per year — for their religious devotion,” she wrote. Would it matter to taxpayers offended by the practice whether the reward came in the form of a government stipend or a tax credit? “Or assume,” she wrote, “a state wishes to subsidize the ownership of crucifixes” in one of three ways. It could purchase them in bulk and distribute them; it could reimburse buyers with a check; or it could pay with a tax credit. “Now, really — do taxpayers have less reason to complain if the state selects the last of these three options?” Justice Kagan asked. Justice Kagan said the majority’s opinion was particularly surprising because the court had never thought the point even worth arguing over. “To the contrary: We have faced the identical situation five times — including in a prior incarnation of this very case! — and we have five times resolved the suit without questioning the plaintiffs’ standing,” she wrote. Justice Kagan acknowledged that people would sometimes continue to have standing of the more traditional sort to challenge government spending on religion. In other cases, though, she wrote, Monday’s decision “will prevent federal courts from determining whether some subsidies to sectarian organizations comport with our Constitution’s guarantee of religious neutrality.” A version of this article appeared in print on April 5, 2011, on page A16 of the New York edition. http://business.newsplurk.com/2011/04/justices-allow-tax-credit-for-religious.html Supreme Court leaves in place Ariz. school tax break By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court threw out a challenge to an Arizona tax-credit program that channels funds to religious schools, in a bitterly divided ruling Monday that makes it more difficult for taxpayers to protest such programs as a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state. EnlargeClose By H. Darr Beiser, USA TODAY Monday's decision was a major victory for the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization, which had intervened in the case to support the Arizona tax-credit program. The Obama Justice Department also had sided with Arizona and had argued that the 1968 case should be narrowly construed. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for a five-justice conservative majority, stressed the importance "in an era of frequent litigation," of strict rules that limit when people are able to claim they have been injured by state policies and entitled to sue. He said the Arizonans challenging the subsidies for religious organizations lacked sufficient grounds to bring a suit based on their taxpayer status. MORE: USA TODAY's Supreme Court Coverage CASE LOG: Follow details on the court's major cases this term Justice Elena Kagan, writing on behalf of the four liberal dissenters, called the majority opinion a significant break from past cases that gave individuals a "day in court to contest the government's financing of religious activity." In her first written dissent in her first term on the court, Kagan said Monday's decision "damages one of this nation's defining constitutional commitments," the guarantee of religious liberty. The Arizona law gives tax credits up to $500 to individuals, and $1,000 to married couples, for donations to "school tuition organizations." Those groups then provide scholarships to students for private schools, including religious institutions. The taxpayers who challenged the program claimed most of the money has been funneled to organizations that provide grants only to religious education. Steven Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented the challengers, said the decision "undermines the role of the courts in preserving the core constitutional principle that government may not subsidize religion." He said the question now is whether legislatures will be encouraged to enact programs tied to tax credits to aid religious schools. David Cortman, an Alliance Defense Fund lawyer who represented a Christian school tuition organization that intervened in the litigation to support the Arizona policy, said the ruling "absolutely should embolden legislatures." Cortman said groups such as his that support school "choice" programs would urge states to enhance options for parents who do not want to send their children to public schools. Arizona private schools, including religious ones, were able to offer students more scholarships because of the tax credit program, he said. The Supreme Court has increasingly allowed government involvement with religious education. In 2002, a five-justice conservative majority upheld a Cleveland program that allowed publicly financed "vouchers" for parents to send their children to private institutions. The court said it did not matter that most of the voucher funds went to religious schools because parents had a genuine choice on whether to use the vouchers for religious or secular institutions. Monday's decision reversed a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that said the taxpayers had legal "standing" to sue and had presented a claim under the First Amendment guarantee that government "shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." In most situations, people cannot challenge government policies simply based on their status as taxpayers. A 1968 Supreme Court case, however, carved out an exception to that rule when tax dollars might be used to support religion. In Monday's decision, the high court majority scaled back that 1968 precedent, Flast v. Cohen and said that tax credits — as opposed to an actual governmental expenditure — could not be targeted in a taxpayer lawsuit. Kennedy stressed that the Flast ruling addressed the "extraction and spending" of tax money that might aid religion. "When Arizona taxpayers choose to contribute to STOs," Kennedy wrote, "they spend their own money, not money the state has collected from (the challengers) or from other taxpayers." Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. (Scalia and Thomas wrote a concurring opinion adding they would outright overturn the 1968 case and allow no taxpayer lawsuits alleging violations of the Constitution.) Dissenting justices called the majority's distinction between tax credits and expenditures "arbitrary." Kagan said it "threatens to eliminate all occasions for a taxpayer to contest the government's monetary support of religion." She said that until Monday's case the court "has never so much as hinted that litigants in the same shoes" as the Arizona challengers would be barred from even getting into court because they objected to a tax credit. She said the fate of a case should not depend on the type of financial subsidy a state offers. "Suppose a state desires to reward Jews — by, say, $500 per year — for their religious devotion," Kagan said. "Should the nature of taxpayers' concern vary if the state allows Jews to claim the aid on their tax returns, in lieu of receiving an annual stipend? Or assume a state wishes to subsidize the ownership of crucifixes. It could purchase the religious symbols in bulk and distribute them to all takers. Or it could mail a reimbursement check to any individual who buys her own and submits a receipt for the purchase. Or it could authorize that person to claim a tax credit equal to the price she paid. Now, really — do taxpayers have less reason to complain if the state selects the last of these three options?" Kagan said that since its inception about 13 years ago, the private-school-tuition tax credit had cost Arizona an estimated $350 million in diverted tax revenue. Kagan was joined in her dissent in Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. The Obama Justice Department had sided with Arizona and those defending the tax credit policy. It had argued that the 1968 case should be narrowly construed. During oral arguments, acting U.S. solicitor general Neal Katyal had drawn the ire of Kagan, a former solicitor general, when he had argued that taxpayers should be able to sue for infringements on religious liberty only when funds are more directly taken out of state coffers, rather than related to a tax credit. The case had been closely followed by groups opposing and, alternatively, favoring public programs that benefit religious education. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State criticized the decision. "This misguided ruling betrays the public school system by directing tax dollars to religious schools," said the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United. "The court, with the full support of the Obama administration, has slammed the courthouse door in the face of Americans who don't want their tax dollars to subsidize religion." On the other side, Tim Keller, executive director of the Institute for Justice's Arizona chapter, which favors state programs that enhance private-school options for parents, praised the ruling. He called it part of a court trend of rebuffing "efforts by school choice opponents to use the courts to halt programs that empower families to choose a private school education if that is where their child's needs will best be served." http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2011-04-04-supreme-court-arizona-schools-tax_N.htm U.S. Supreme Court Supreme Court Tosses Religious School Tax Credit Case on Standing Grounds Posted Apr 4, 2011 10:05 AM CDT By Debra Cassens Weiss ABA Journal Law News Now The U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed an establishment clause challenge to a tax credit program that helps fund scholarships at religious schools, ruling that the taxpayers who sued don’t have standing to pursue the case. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion (PDF) in the 5-4 case. The plaintiffs’ mere status as taxpayers was insufficient to create standing, Kennedy said. His opinion sees a difference between direct governmental expenditures and tax credits. In the latter instance, he wrote, “any financial injury remains speculative.” The Arizona program provided individual tax credits of up to $500 for contributions to groups that in turn funded private school scholarships, including scholarships to religious schools. Kennedy concluded his opinion with a cautionary note about activist courts. “Few exercises of the judicial power are more likely to undermine public confidence in the neutrality and integrity of the judiciary than one which casts the court in the role of a Council of Revision, conferring on itself the power to invalidate laws at the behest of anyone who disagrees with them,” he wrote. “In an era of frequent litigation, class actions, sweeping injunctions with prospective effect, and continuing jurisdiction to enforce judicial remedies, courts must be more careful to insist on the formal rules of standing, not less so.” In a concurring opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the Supreme Court's 1968 taxpayer standing decision Flast v. Cohen should be overruled. He was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. The majority and dissenters are arguing whether the Arizona taxpayers fall within Flast's narrow exception allowing taxpayer standing in establishment cases, Scalia said. Flast "is an anomaly in our jurisprudence," Scalia said, and he would repudiate the decision. Justice Elena Kagan dissented. She was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Stephen G. Breyer and Justice Sonia Sotomayor. The tax credit program has cost Arizona $350 million in diverted revenue, Kagan said. The majority’s “novel distinction in standing law between appropriations and tax expenditures has as little basis in principle as it has in our precedent,” she wrote. The combined cases are Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn and Garriott v. Winn. http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/supreme_court_tosses_religious_school_tax_credit_case_on_standing_grounds/ Read More