7th Circuit Uses Hein Decision to Throw Out Challenge to Sectarian Legislative Prayers in Indiana
A successful challenge to Indiana's practice of opening House sessions with overtly sectarian prayer has been overruled by the 7th Circuit today, citing the Supreme Court's recent decision in Hein in determining that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring the case. A District Court had issued a permanent injunction prohibiting the Indiana House from continuing its sectarian prayer practice. This decision reverses that injunction.
The plaintiffs have not tied their status as taxpayers to the House’s allegedly unconstitutional practice of regularly offering a sectarian prayer. They have not shown that the legislature has extracted from them tax dollars for the establishment and implementation of a program that violates the Establishment Clause. The appropriations, which cover the incidental costs of the program, “did not expressly authorize, direct, or even mention the expenditures,” attendant to the “Minister of the Day” program. Instead, the plaintiffs allege only an “’expenditure of government funds in violation of the Establishment Clause,’” which the Court explicitly rejected as inadequate in Hein.