Try the spending power. But why would Congress want to do this, rather than leave it to each state? And if Congress did, why not include a provision that would specify that the law does not apply to exemptions that would cause significant harm to third parties?
On Monday, February 22, 2016, Steven Jamar <stevenja...@gmail.com> wrote: > How might Congress draft a federal law that requires states to accommodate > religious beliefs so that state employees are free to refuse to perform > tasks that are contrary to their religious beliefs? We have the Boerne > problems of making a record and RFRA being held to be too much of a > bludgeon. But assuming we could somehow get past that, what would the > language be? Could this work: > > "Every state must accommodate the religious beliefs and practices of its > employees and those persons with which it contracts by exempting them from > performing tasks that are contrary to their religious beliefs.” > > Even assuming the record-requirement part of Boerne could be met, I just > can’t seem to craft language that I think would be likely to pass > constitutional muster. > > So, help wanted. > > Steve > > > > -- > Prof. Steven D. Jamar > Howard University School of Law > vox: 202-806-8017 > fax: 202-806-8567 > http://sdjlaw.org > > “It’s not the note you play that’s the wrong note – it’s the note you > play afterwards that makes it right or wrong.” > > Miles Davis > > -- Ira C. Lupu F. Elwood & Eleanor Davis Professor of Law, Emeritus George Washington University Law School 2000 H St., NW Washington, DC 20052 (202)994-7053 Co-author (with Professor Robert Tuttle) of "Secular Government, Religious People" ( Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2014)) My SSRN papers are here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=181272#reg
_______________________________________________ To post, send message to Religionlaw@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/religionlaw Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
