No. 19-66

In the Supreme Court of the United States__________________

GEORGE Q. RICKS,Petitioner,

v.

IDAHO CONTRACTORS BOARD, et al.,Respondents.

__________________

On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the Idaho Court of Appeals

__________________

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE THE BUCKEYEINSTITUTE IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONER

__________________

ROBERT ALT

THE BUCKEYE INSTITUTE

88 East Broad Street,Suite 1300Columbus, OH 43215

MICHAEL CORCORAN*DECHERT LLP2929 Arch StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104

*Admitted only in New York

MICHAEL H. MCGINLEY

Counsel of RecordDECHERT LLP1900 K Street, NWWashington, DC 20006(202) 261-3300michael.mcginley@dechert.com

LINCOLN DAVIS WILSON

DECHERT LLP1095 6th AvenueNew York, NY 10036

Counsel for Amicus Curiae The Buckeye Institute

October 7, 2019 Becker Gallagher · Cincinnati, OH · Washington, D.C. · 800.890.5001

i

QUESTION PRESENTED

Whether the Court should revisit its holding inEmployment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990),that the Free Exercise Clause generally requires noreligious exemptions from laws that are neutral andgenerally applicable.

ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUESTION PRESENTED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

ARGUMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

I. The Three Decades Since Smith HaveWitnessed A Vast Expansion Of TheAdministrative State . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

II. The Administrative State’s IncreasingIntrusions On Religious Freedom WarrantRevisiting Smith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

III. Smith’s Reliance On The Political Process IsAn Inadequate Check On AdministrativeBurdens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

iii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

CASES

City of Arlington, Tex. v. FCC, 569 U.S. 290 (2013). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . passim

Hobbie v. Unemployment Appeals Comm’n of Florida, 480 U.S. 136 (1987) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Holt v. Hobbs, 574 U.S. 352 (2015). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and Sch. v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171 (2012). . . . . . 8, 9

Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S. Ct. 2400 (2019). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5, 11

Montgomery v. Cty. of Clinton, 743 F. Supp. 1253 (W.D. Mich. 1990) . . . . . . . . 14

PHH Corp. v. CFPB, 881 F.3d 75 (D.C. Cir. 2018). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 5

Ricks v. State of Idaho Contractors Bd., 435 P.3d 1 (Idaho Ct. App. 2018) . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Sackett v. EPA, 566 U.S. 120 (2012). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Stinemetz v. Kansas Health Policy Auth., 252 P.3d 141 (Kan. Ct. App. 2011) . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

iv

Stormans, Inc. v. Wiesman, 794 F.3d 1064 (9th Cir. 2015), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 2433 (2016) . . . . . . . . . . 14

Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Emp. Security Div., 450 U.S. 707 (1981) . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S. Ct. 2012 (2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

STATUTES

12 U.S.C. §§ 5491 et. seq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

15 U.S.C. §§ 78d et. seq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

15 U.S.C. §§ 7211 et. seq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

16 U.S.C. § 1533 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

16 U.S.C. § 1540 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

21 U.S.C. § 335b . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

21 U.S.C. § 371 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

21 U.S.C. § 374 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

21 U.S.C. § 393 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

42 U.S.C. § 2000e-4 et. seq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

v

84 Stat. 2086. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

606 C.M.R. § 7.11(11)(d). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

IOWA CODE §§ 216.3 et. seq . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

MONT. CODE ANN. § 2-15-1706. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

N.M. STAT. ANN. §§ 28-1-3 et seq. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

43 PA. STAT. §§ 956 et. seq.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

SAN FRANCISCO CHARTER, art. IV, § 4.107 . . . . . . . . 5

OTHER AUTHORITIES

Rebecca Haw Allensworth, Foxes at the Henhouse:Occupational Licensing Boards Up Close, 105CAL. L. REV. 1567 (2017). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Robert Alt, The Administrative Threat to CivilLiberties, 2018 Bradley Symposium Lecture(May 15, 2018), available athttps://herit.ag/30OM0fW. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Paul Barker, Note: Religious Exemptions and theVocational Dimension of Work, 119 COLUM. L.REV. 169 (2019) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Eric Biber & J.B. Ruhl, The Permit Power Revisited:The Theory and Practice of Regulatory Permitsin the Administrative State, 64 DUKE L.J. 133(2014). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

vi

Comment, Judgmental Neutrality: When theSupreme Court Inevitably Implies That YourReligion Is Just Plain Wrong, 38 SETON HALL L.REV. 715 (2008) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Christopher DeMuth, Can the Administrative StateBe Tamed?, 8 J. LEGAL ANALYSIS 121 (2016) . . 3, 4

Stephen Dinan, Feds Shut Down Amish Farm forSelling Fresh Milk, WASH. TIMES (Feb. 13, 2012). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Orphe Divounguy, Greg R. Lawson, & Bryce Hill,Still Forbidden to Succeed: The Negative Effectsof Occupational Licensing on Ohio’s Workforce(December 18, 2017) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Aaron Edlin & Rebecca Haw, Cartels by AnotherName: Should Licensed Occupations FaceAntitrust Scrutiny?, 162 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1093(2014). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Richard A. Epstein, The Permit Power Meets theConstitution, 81 IOWA L. REV. 407 (1995) . . . . 4, 9

Eugene Gressman & Angela C. Carmella, TheRFRA Revision of the Free Exercise Clause, 57OHIO STATE L.J. 65 (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Philip Hamburger, Exclusion and Equality: HowExclusion from the Political Process RendersReligious Liberty Unequal, 90 NOTRE DAME L.REV. 1919 (2015) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7, 10, 12, 13

PHILIP HAMBURGER, IS ADMINISTRATIVE LAWUNLAWFUL? (2014) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 5

vii

Douglas Laycock, Church and State in the UnitedStates: Competing Conceptions and HistoricChanges, 13 IND. J. GLOBAL LEGAL STUD. 503(2006). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Douglas Laycock, Religious Liberty and the CultureWars, 2014 U. ILL. L. REV. 839 (2014) . . . . . . . . . 9

Douglas Laycock, The Religious FreedomRestoration Act, 1993 B.Y.U.L. REV. 221 (1993). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Douglas Laycock, Theology Scholarships, the Pledgeof Allegiance, and Religious Liberty, 118 HARV.L. REV. 155 (2004) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Christopher C. Lund, Martyrdom and ReligiousFreedom, 50 CONN. L. REV. 959 (2018). . . . . . . . . 8

National Conference of State Legislatures, TheState of Occupational Licensing: Research, StatePolicies and Trends (October 11, 2017) . . . . . . . . 7

Mark L. Rienzi, Administrative Power andReligious Liberty at the Supreme Court, 69 CASEW. RES. L. REV. 355 (2018) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4, 8

Gregory C. Sisk, How Traditional and MinorityReligions Fare in the Courts: Empirical EvidenceFrom Religious Liberty Cases, 76 U. COLO. L.REV. 1021 (2005) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

1

INTEREST OF AMICUS CURIAE1

The Buckeye Institute was founded in 1989 as anindependent research and educational institution—athink tank—to formulate and promote free-marketsolutions for Ohio’s most pressing public policyproblems.

The staff at Buckeye accomplish the organization’smission by performing timely and reliable research onkey issues, compiling and synthesizing data,formulating sound free-market policies, and promotingthose solutions for implementation in Ohio andreplication across the country.

The Buckeye Institute is a non-partisan, non-profit,and tax-exempt organization, as defined by section501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code.

Through its Legal Center, the Buckeye Instituteengages in litigation and files amicus curiae briefs thatare consistent with its mission and goals.

1 Pursuant to Rule 37.6, amicus curiae affirms that no counsel fora party authored this brief in whole or in part and that no personother than amicus curiae, its members, and its counsel made amonetary contribution to its preparation or submission. Counselof record for all parties received notice at least 10 days prior to thedue date of the intention of amicus curiae to file this brief. Allparties consented to the filing of the brief.

2

INTRODUCTION ANDSUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

In Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872(1990), the Court held that the First Amendment’s FreeExercise clause does not generally require exemptionsto neutral laws of general applicability. Concernedthat a contrary rule could lead to an unmanageableflood of exemption requests, the Court held that theprotection of free exercise rights of religious minoritieswas properly left to “the political process.” Id. at 888-90. After Smith, that political process led to federaland state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRAs)to protect the religious freedom that Smith de-constitutionalized. In the nearly thirty years sinceSmith, those statutes have not led to the unworkablescheme of exemptions that Smith predicted.

Meanwhile, over the same three decades, the Nationhas witnessed a dramatic expansion of theadministrative state. With no corner of American lifeungoverned by bureaucratic rules and regulations,religious adherents now increasingly seek exemptionsnot from statutory law, but from administrativeschemes that are authored, implemented, andadjudicated by the same body. While all Americans aredisadvantaged by the lack of political accountability inthese bureaucratic bodies, religious individuals areespecially vulnerable to agencies that make lawwithout any consideration of their religious freedoms.

In addition to the reasons highlighted by Petitionerand other amici, the intervening rise of theadministrative state warrants revisiting Smith.

3

Religious Americans’ rights are not protected bybureaucratic processes in which they have little or nosay, and the changing political winds that affectstatutory free exercise rights are inadequate to protecta right that our Constitution makes fundamental. Although Smith did not directly grapple with theburgeoning rise of administrative burdens, it declinedto overrule the Court’s earlier precedents thatrecognized that greater judicial scrutiny and protectionof free exercise may be warranted within suchadministrative schemes. This case, arising out of anadministrative scheme for occupational licensing, thuspresents an ideal vehicle for reevaluating Smith inlight of the exponential rise of the administrative state.

ARGUMENT

I. The Three Decades Since Smith HaveWitnessed A Vast Expansion Of TheAdministrative State.

In the decades since Smith, the scope of theadministrative state has exploded. With literally“hundreds of federal agencies poking into every nookand cranny of daily life,” “the danger posed by thegrowing power of the administrative state cannot bedismissed.” City of Arlington, Tex. v. FCC, 569 U.S.290, 315 (2013) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting). While it iscommon knowledge that the administrative state hasexpanded steadily since the New Deal, even moredramatic has been its expansion in the thirty yearssince this Court’s decision in Smith. From then until2010, the Code of Federal Regulations grew by 40,000pages to a total of 146,000 pages. Christopher DeMuth,Can the Administrative State Be Tamed?, 8 J. LEGAL

4

ANALYSIS 121, 126 (2016). Approximately 250,000federal regulations have been added in those thirtyyears, bringing the corpus of federal administrative lawalone to a total of over 1 million regulations. Mark L.Rienzi, Administrative Power and Religious Liberty atthe Supreme Court, 69 CASE W. RES. L. REV. 355, 381(2018). Today’s administrative state is truly leviathan.

This bureaucratic behemoth “hold[s] enormouspower over the economic and social life of the UnitedStates.” PHH Corp. v. CFPB, 881 F.3d 75, 165 (D.C.Cir. 2018) (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting). Administrativelaw “constrain[s] Americans in all aspects of their lives,political, economic, social, and personal,” havingbecome “the government’s primary mode of controllingAmericans.” PHILIP HAMBURGER, IS ADMINISTRATIVELAW UNLAWFUL? 1 (2014). Administrativeprocesses—with their attendant demands andthreats—intrude upon many facets of American lifethat may well have been thought the proper province ofprivate life and business, including brushing one’steeth, 606 C.M.R. § 7.11(11)(d); selling fresh milk,Stephen Dinan, Feds Shut Down Amish Farm forSelling Fresh Milk, WASH. TIMES (Feb. 13, 2012); orfilling holes on one’s land, see Sackett v. EPA, 566 U.S.120, 124-25 (2012). Modern administrative schemesrequire permits and licenses for “everything from a doghouse in the back yard to a nuclear power plant.” Richard A. Epstein, The Permit Power Meets theConstitution, 81 IOWA L. REV. 407, 407 (1995).

The growing power and pervasiveness of thispolitically unaccountable rulemaking is questionablewithin our constitutional tradition. See generally

5

HAMBURGER, supra. While the Framers carefullyseparated the legislative, executive, and judicialfunctions, administrative agencies have blended themin new and dangerous ways. See Kisor v. Wilkie, 139 S.Ct. 2400, 2437-39 (Gorsuch, J., dissenting). And withthat blending comes “a significant threat to individualliberty.” PHH Corp., 881 F.3d at 165 (Kavanaugh, J.,dissenting). In particular, state and federalgovernments have now created numerousadministrative agencies vested with legislative,executive, and judicial powers—the power topromulgate law, the power to investigate and prosecuteviolations of that law, and the quasi-judicial power toimpose penalties, sometimes substantially in excess ofremedies available in court. E.g., 12 U.S.C. §§ 5491 et.seq. (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau); 15 U.S.C.§§ 7211 et. seq. (Public Company Accounting OversightBoard); 84 Stat. 2086-89 (Environmental ProtectionAgency); 16 U.S.C. §§ 1533, 1540 (Department ofInterior); 15 U.S.C. §§ 78d et. seq. (Securities andExchange Commission); 21 U.S.C. §§ 335b, 371, 374,393 (Food and Drug Administration); 42 U.S.C.§§ 2000e-4 et. seq. (Equal Employment OpportunityCommission); N.M. STAT. ANN. §§ 28-1-3 et. seq. (NewMexico Human Rights Commission); 43 PA. STAT.§§ 956 et. seq. (Pennsylvania Human RightsCommission); IOWA CODE §§ 216.3 et. seq. (Iowa CivilRights Commission); MONT. CODE ANN. § 2-15-1706(Montana Commission for Human Rights); SANFRANCISCO CHARTER, art. IV, § 4.107 (San FranciscoHuman Rights Commission). Without checks orbalances or direct accountability to the public, suchagencies remain above the democratic fray—in fact,that is often the very purpose of their design.

6

The pernicious effect of the administrative state’spervasive encroachment on American life has beenparticularly acute in occupational licensing regimeslike those at issue here. “[N]early a third of Americanworkers [today] must obtain a state occupationallicense to perform their jobs legally.” Eric Biber & J.B.Ruhl, The Permit Power Revisited: The Theory andPractice of Regulatory Permits in the AdministrativeState, 64 DUKE L.J. 133, 151 (2014). The modern staterequires licenses for everything “from doctors andlawyers to barbers, florists, and even fortune tellers.” Orphe Divounguy, Greg R. Lawson, & Bryce Hill, StillForbidden to Succeed: The Negative Effects ofOccupational Licensing on Ohio’s Workforce, at 4 (Dec.18, 2017). The requirements for these licensingschemes o f t en bespeak a “d i s turb ingarbitrariness”—for example, in Ohio, only a month oftraining is needed for EMTs, but nearly a year isrequired for cosmetologists, and more than a year forbarbers and auctioneers. Id. The natural cause ofthese incongruities, of course, is that they arepromulgated by members of the profession theyregulate, who have obvious incentives to erect barriersto entry from additional competition. See Aaron Edlin& Rebecca Haw, Cartels by Another Name: ShouldLicensed Occupations Face Antitrust Scrutiny?, 162 U.Pa. L. Rev. 1093, 1095-96 (2014). The proceedings ofthose occupational licensing authorities are oftenopaque, failing to post their minutes online, to list theirmembers, and even to comply with the laws that createthem. See Rebecca Haw Allensworth, Foxes at theHenhouse: Occupational Licensing Boards Up Close,105 CAL. L. REV. 1567, 1577-78 (2017).

7

In addition to driving up costs to consumers fromdecreased competition in the marketplace, there isgrowing evidence that these licensing requirementsdirectly harm the most vulnerable members of society. Because of the time and money necessary to obtainsuch a license, these requirements disproportionatelyharm low-income workers, the unemployed, membersof the military, and immigrants. National Conferenceof State Legislatures, The State of OccupationalLicensing: Research, State Policies and Trends, at 7-8(October 11, 2017). Perhaps most of all, they harmthose with criminal records, who “can be denied anoccupational license in half the states, regardless ofwhether their criminal record relates to the job theyare seeking or how long ago the conviction occurred.” Id. at 8. And because licenses are needed for so manyjobs, these requirements may in turn lead to anoutsized effect on rates of recidivism for those with noother reasonably available opportunity to earn a living.

II. The Administrative State’s IncreasingIntrusions On Religious Freedom WarrantRevisiting Smith.

The burden posed by the growing body ofadministrative law falls disproportionately on religiousAmericans. “[T]he growth of federal administrativepower . . . leaves Americans, including religiousAmericans, no opportunity to vote for or against theiradministrative lawmakers.” Philip Hamburger,Exclusion and Equality: How Exclusion from thePolitical Process Renders Religious Liberty Unequal, 90NOTRE DAME L. REV. 1919, 1920 (2015). Asadministrative burdens grow, so do the number of

8

people seeking to cast off their weight. Increasingly,the religious freedom claims before this Court andothers target agency actions, not legislativeenactments. Rienzi, supra, at 377-80. Thatdevelopment—unanticipated by Smith—warrantsrevisiting it nearly thirty years hence.

The administrative threat to religious libertyextends far beyond arcane matters of religiousobservance. When agencies run roughshod overreligious objections, often as a matter of sheer“bureaucratic inflexibility,” the consequences are attimes severe. Douglas Laycock, The Religious FreedomRestoration Act, 1993 B.Y.U.L. REV. 221, 226 (1993). Inone particularly egregious example, a state medicalexaminer performed an autopsy on a Hmong man overthe family’s religious objections—for “medicalcuriosity,” not social need. Id. And, in an even moreextreme case, administrative intransigence led to adeadly result, where a state agency’s refusal to allow aJehovah’s Witness to travel out of state for a bloodlessliver transplant cost the patient her life. ChristopherC. Lund, Martyrdom and Religious Freedom, 50 CONN.L. REV. 959, 974-75 & n.66 (2018) (discussing Stinemetzv. Kansas Health Policy Auth., 252 P.3d 141, 143-44(Kan. Ct. App. 2011)). Similar examples abound. E.g.,id. at 976 (school refusing to allow a Native Americanstudent to have long hair); Holt v. Hobbs, 574 U.S. 352(2015) (prison refusing to allow a Muslim prisoner tohave a beard). And, in other recent litigation, theEEOC itself has taken positions against religiousexercise that this Court unanimously described as notonly “remarkable,” but “untenable.” Hosanna-Tabor

9

Evangelical Lutheran Church and Sch. v. EEOC, 565U.S. 171, 189 (2012).

The impact of administrative law on religiousobservance has been particularly notable for state-lawoccupational requirements like those at issue here. Although “the government may not force people tochoose between participation in a public program andtheir right to free exercise of religion,” Trinity LutheranChurch of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S. Ct. 2012,2026 (2017) (Thomas, J., concurring), the inflexibilityof state occupational licensing programs has done justthat. Indeed, the burdens of such schemes areheightened for Americans who view their work asintimately intertwined with their religious beliefs. SeePaul Barker, Note: Religious Exemptions and theVocational Dimension of Work, 119 COLUM. L. REV.169, 185 & n.104 (2019) (collecting statements aboutvocations for Jews, Catholics, and Protestants alike). After all, “churches for centuries have treatededucation, and care of the sick and the destitute, aspart of their missions.” Douglas Laycock, ReligiousLiberty and the Culture Wars, 2014 U. ILL. L. REV. 839,873 (2014). But the obligation to perform a job inservice of one’s Creator can become a moral dilemmawhen permit and licensing requirements areinterposed. “Once [a] permit is required, the individualcitizen becomes a supplicant before the government,”hoping that he will be able to perform his religiouscommitments. See Epstein, supra, at 412. The ever-expanding number of regulations on any givenoccupation leaves many Americans increasingly caughtbetween their religious vocations and their secularduties.

10

The growing inequality of access to theadministrative and political processes by religiousAmericans—particularly by potentially disfavoredreligious minorities—lends considerable doubt to thenotion that the “neutral law[s] of general applicability”that Smith inoculated from free exercise challengestruly remain neutral. Smith, 494 U.S. at 879 (citationomitted); Hamburger, Exclusion and Equality, supra,at 1920. Smith was notably careful to state that theCourt may not “punish the expression of religiousdoctrines it believes to be false.” Smith, 494 U.S. at877 (citing United States v. Ballard, 322 U.S. 78, 86-88(1944)). Yet that is inevitably what occurs wheninflexible bureaucracies run roughshod over adherents’constitutionally protected religious beliefs. SeeHamburger, Exclusion and Equality, supra, at 1921;Comment, Judgmental Neutrality: When the SupremeCourt Inevitably Implies That Your Religion Is JustPlain Wrong, 38 SETON HALL L. REV. 715, 737 (2008). While laying claim to neutrality, Smith has ushered ina regime that is decidedly not neutral, by elevating theuniversal application of administrative schemes oversincere religious beliefs.

III. Smith’s Reliance On The Political ProcessIs An Inadequate Check On AdministrativeBurdens.

Smith did not meaningfully grapple with the harmthat the rise of the administrative behemoth hasinflicted on religious freedom. Instead, it suggestedthat the democratic process would operate as a checkon such pressures: “[A] society that believes in thenegative protection accorded to religious belief can be

11

expected to be solicitous of that value in its legislationas well.” Smith, 494 U.S. at 890.

However, notwithstanding the efforts of the federalgovernment and some states to pass RFRAs, Smithleaves religious minorities exposed to the whims ofpolitical majorities. The solution to the problem of theadministrative state is not reliance on the very politicalprocesses that have allowed its troubling expansion. The promise of the First Amendment is “to withdrawcertain subjects from the vicissitudes of politicalcontroversies, to place them beyond the reach ofmajorities.” Smith, 494 U.S. at 902-03 (O’Connor, J.,dissenting) (quoting W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v.Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 638 (1943)). Judicial reviewunder the First Amendment thus provides “anindependent judiciary” that protects unpopularminorities “from the arbitrary use of governmentalpower.” Kisor, 139 S. Ct. at 2438 (Gorsuch, J.,dissenting).

Popular opinion as to religion in particular isfleeting, for it may often protect and celebrate onemoment what it excoriated a moment earlier. “Oneneed only recall the mob violence attending thepilgrimage of the Mormons across the country oragainst immigrant Catholics in urban centers duringthe nineteenth century” to see the kinds ofdiscrimination our own country has inflicted onreligious minorities. Gregory C. Sisk, How Traditionaland Minority Religions Fare in the Courts: EmpiricalEvidence From Religious Liberty Cases, 76 U. COLO. L.REV. 1021, 1024 (2005). Those seeking to suppressother religions often harnessed the political process to

12

advance their discriminatory objectives: BlaineAmendments, for example, were a common way toexpress “anti-Catholic bigotry.” Douglas Laycock,Theology Scholarships, the Pledge of Allegiance, andReligious Liberty, 118 HARV. L. REV. 155, 187-88 (2004). And religious tests were once used to exclude atheistsfrom public office. Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488,489 (1961).

Moreover, time has shown that the democraticprocess is not an adequate check on the growingadministrative state—especially not for religiousAmericans. Administrative rulemaking shields thequasi-legislative process from the significant politicalchecks offered by bicameralism and presentment. “That result, of course, is a function of design and notan accident,” and one which regrettably has negativeeffects on civil liberties. Robert Alt, TheAdministrative Threat to Civil Liberties, 2018 BradleySymposium Lecture (May 15, 2018), available athttps://herit.ag/30OM0fW. Although “[p]rotection fromthe burdens of general laws . . . comes in the politicalprocess,” the pervasive force of administrative law“significantly excludes Americans and especiallyreligious Americans from this process.” Hamburger,Exclusion and Equality, supra, at 1926. Whilereligious Americans can vote for, petition, “or otherwiselobby members of Congress,” they have “no hope ofeven identifying most administrative lawmakers,” letalone voting them out of office. Id. at 1939. “[T]headministrative lawmaking process is a closed world.” Id. at 1942. It is even more closed to religiousAmericans, who by virtue of the federal tax code areexcluded from institutional advocacy regarding even

13

the limited political checks available on theadministrative process. Id. at 1921.

* * *

Finally, reconsideration of Smith in this context iswarranted because, viewed as a whole, this Court’s freeexercise jurisprudence permits religious exemptionsfrom professional licensing schemes and similaradministrative burdens. While Smith upheld a“generally applicable criminal law” against a freeexercise challenge, 494 U.S. at 884, the Court declinedto overrule earlier decisions that had grantedexemptions to state administrative schemes that“substantially burden[ed] a religious practice.” Id. at883 (citing Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398 (1963);Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Emp. SecurityDiv., 450 U.S. 707 (1981); Hobbie v. UnemploymentAppeals Comm’n of Florida, 480 U.S. 136 (1987)); seealso Douglas Laycock, Church and State in the UnitedStates: Competing Conceptions and Historic Changes,13 IND. J. GLOBAL LEGAL STUD. 503, 536 (2006); EugeneGressman & Angela C. Carmella, The RFRA Revisionof the Free Exercise Clause, 57 OHIO STATE L.J. 65, 89(1996). The principles embodied in those decisionswarrant accommodation of religious objections withregard to the professional licensing scheme at issuehere.

But, in the years since Smith, the lower courts havestruggled to reconcile Smith’s holding regardinggenerally applicable criminal statutes with the Court’searlier holdings in Sherbert and Thomas thatpermitted exemptions from overly burdensomeadministrative schemes. As a result, those courts

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typically have applied Smith’s holding categorically tobar free exercise claims in every context. See, e.g.,Stormans, Inc. v. Wiesman, 794 F.3d 1064, 1077 (9thCir. 2015) (requiring pharmacists to stock certaindrugs despite religious objections), cert. denied, 136S. Ct. 2433 (2016); Montgomery v. Cty. of Clinton, 743F. Supp. 1253, 1259-60 (W.D. Mich. 1990) (refusing toenjoin an unnecessary autopsy over family’s religiousobjections). Likewise, here, the lower courtssweepingly applied Smith’s holding without grapplingwith the still-valid precedents that preceded it nor thesignificant practical developments that have followedit. See Ricks v. State of Idaho Contractors Bd., 435P.3d 1 (Idaho Ct. App. 2018). This case is thus an idealvehicle for revisiting Smith’s outdated analysis, andreorienting free exercise doctrine to provide reasonableprotections against bureaucratic processes disinclinedto respect religious liberty.

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CONCLUSION

The petition for writ of certiorari should be granted.

Respectfully submitted,

ROBERT ALTTHE BUCKEYE INSTITUTE88 East Broad Street, Suite 1300Columbus, OH 43215

MICHAEL CORCORAN*DECHERT LLP2929 Arch StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19104

*Admitted only in New York

MICHAEL H. MCGINLEY Counsel of RecordDECHERT LLP1900 K Street, NWWashington, DC 20006(202) 261-3300michael.mcginley@dechert.com

LINCOLN DAVIS WILSONDECHERT LLP1095 6th AvenueNew York, NY 10036

Counsel for Amicus Curiae The Buckeye Institute

October 7, 2019