Thanks, Howard. Arguably, context might be relevant in some circumstances. If a
commission's responsibilities directly related to the treatment of religious
organizations, that might justify the reservation of a seat for a member of a
religious organization. If most of the buildings designated as historic
landmarks by an historic landmark commission were houses of worship, for
example, arguably that might justify reserving a seat on the commission for the
member of a house of worship. But there might be more neutral ways to serve
that goal -- such as reserving a seat for an owner of one of the kinds of
property that are most often designated as landmarks.
I'm not sure of the purpose for reserving one seat on a police commission for a
member of a religious group, but I doubt very much that it has anything to do
with concerns about police relations with a particular faith. Indeed, the
reservation only reserves the seat for a member of a religious organization.
The city has the discretion to choose which religious organization's nominee is
selected. That's one of the problems I see with the appointment reservation
procedure.
I think there may be a distinction between purely advisory commissions and
those that exercise government power and between commissions that provide no
compensation to their members and those that do. I'm less sure that the number
of commissioners is relevant. Would there be a different constitutional
analysis if two seats were reserved for members of religious organizations out
of ten rather than one seat? (Although, of course, if all the seats were
reserved for members of a religious organization, it would be an easy case.)
I'm also not sure why the procedure for selecting other commissioners would be
relevant?
Alan
From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu
on behalf of Friedman, Howard M.
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2015 4:52 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: RE: reserved seat for member of religious organization on police
comission
It seems to me that much depends on context. Where a community policing
strategy makes it important for the police department to have ongoing
relationships with particular religious groups (e.g. to overcome resistance to
reporting co-religionists' actions to authorities), then I do not think there
is a serious constitutional problem. A reasonable person would not see this as
an endorsement of the religious group's beliefs. On the other hand, where the
reservation of a seat is intended to assure that the dominant religious group
in the community will be able to perpetuate its influence, that seems to me to
be a different story. Also, what authority does the police commission have in
this community? How many members does it have? How are the others chosen, and
why? These all seem relevant. This triggers in my head the famous lines from
Robert Cover's Nomos and Narrative-- "There is a difference between sleeping
late on Sunday and refusing the sacraments, between having a snack and
desecrating the fast of Yom Kippur, between banking a check and refusing to pay
your income tax."
Howard Friedman
From: religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu [religionlaw-boun...@lists.ucla.edu]
on behalf of Alan E Brownstein [aebrownst...@ucdavis.edu]
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2015 4:01 PM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: reserved seat for member of religious organization on police
comission
Anyone have any thoughts on the constitutionality of a rule that reserves one
seat on a multi-member police commission for a member of a local religious
organization (any religious organization would be acceptable) who is nominated
by the organization. Some compensation is involved.
Alan
___
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.