t's baaack...

After months of delay and rumors that it was a dead issue, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) yesterday introduced the Religious Liberty Protection Act of 2000, S. 2081. Like its mirror version passed last year by the House of Representatives, the RLPA would require that governments employ a "compelling interest/least restrictive means" test when dealing with faith-based groups and practices.

   Getting the legislation to the Senate, though, has taxed even many of the bill's former supporters.

   ¶    RLPA is based on the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). That measure was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the historic BOERNE v. FLORES decision of 1997. The 6-3 ruling declared that RFRA was an unconstitutional extension of congressional authority, and sought to exempt religious groups from "generally applicable," neutral civil laws.

   Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that the RFRA provided religious groups with a legal instrument that "no atheist" could obtain, and thus violated the separation of church and state.

   ¶    Undeterred, supporters of RFRA simply recast the legislation and introduced it as the federal Religious Liberty Protection Act. Mini-RFRAs have also been introduced in over a dozen states.

   ¶    The House approved a version of RLPA on July 15, 1999. Although the legislation was supported by a wide range of liberal and conservative religious groups as well as several political advocacy organizations, support for the measure has steadily eroded. At issue: concerns that RLPA could be used by religious groups to nullify civil rights laws, and use the measure to discriminate against people of color, women, gays or other groups.

   ¶    Last September, key organizations began to abandon the Coalition for the Free Exercise of Religion, which had been the premier group supporting RLPA on capitol hill and in state legislatures. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State withdrew, as did the American Civil Liberties Union. This came as an anti-RLPA front began to coalesce, bringing together atheists, neighborhood preservationists, health care professionals, civil libertarians, child welfare advocates and others. Even some conservative groups like the Home School Legal Defense Fund became skeptical of RLPA's use of federal authority.

   ¶    After three months of maneuvering, what remains of the pro-RLPA coalition now have a bill for introduction in the Senate. In recent weeks, RLPA boosters have worked behind the scenes in hopes of wooing back some civil rights groups by offering to possibly limit provisions of the legislation. That has not worked. Even moderate Republicans who might have supported the measure last year are now under pressure to vote against RLPA, should it manage to come up for a floor vote.

   At least one Christian legal group tried to strike a compromise with Sen. Edward Kennedy, who worries that RLPA would limit enforcement of laws against child abuse.

   ¶    Senate Bill 2081 appeared on the THOMAS web site this morning, but already there is finger-pointing between two big boosters of the legislation, Sen. Hatch and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) Lott has made numerous promises over the past nine months that he would fast track the RLPA, or at least bring it to the Senate floor. Earlier this week, there were even reports that Lott would invoke cloture on the measure, which was then listed as the House version, H.R. 1691. Lott and Hatch engineered a series of "stealth" hearings on RLPA last year, but that incarnation of the act never made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

   ¶    So far, no action on RLPA is listed on the Senate calendar. We are told that Hatch's bill is "at the desk," which means that Mr. Lott can still fast-track the Religious Liberty Protection Act for a vote.

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