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Walz
v. Tax Commission
397
U.S. 664 (1970)
The
Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons Religious Institutions
Group gratefully acknowledges the contribution of the
Ethics and Public Policy Center which provided the following case commentary taken from Terry Eastland, Religious
Liberty in the Supreme Court: The Cases That Define
the Debate over Church and State (1993).
In
this first religion-clause case decided during the tenure
of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, the Supreme Court upheld
the practice—dating to the American founding—of granting
tax exemptions "to religious organizations for religious
property used for religious purposes" Frederick Walz, a
New York City property owner, sued to enjoin the city tax
commission from granting tax exemptions to religious organizations
for property they used solely for religious purposes. The
complaint failed in the state courts. On appeal the Supreme
Court held that such tax exemptions do not violate the First
Amendment.
In
economic terms, Walz v. Tax Commission was obviously
important. Had the Court sided with Frederick Walz, churches
across America would have been faced with the prospect of
paying large tax bills. Walz also proved legally significant
because of its articulation of what soon became (in Lemon
v. Kurt.zman, 1971) the third element of the three-part
test for determining whether a government action violates
the no-establishment provision: whether the challenged action
creates an "excessive government entanglement" with religion.
Here the Court held that granting property-tax exemptions
to religious groups does not do that.
Chief
Justice Burger's predecessor, Earl Warren, wrote no important
religion-clause opinions either for the Court or separately.
Burger, however, wrote several of major importance (notably
in Lemon, Case 13). Here he wrote the opinion of
the Court, expressing the views of five members. Justices
William Brennan and John Harlan, while concurring in the
result, wrote separate opinions. Only Justice William Douglas
dissented; for him, a tax exemption "is a subsidy." All
four opinions are presented here. They are followed by editorials
from the Washington Post and America.
Participating
in Walz v. Tax Commission, decided May 4, 1970, were
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Associate Justices Hugo
L. Black, William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, John
M. Harlan II, Thurgood Marshall, Potter Stewart, and Byron
R. White. Only eight justices participated; when Walz
was argued, President Nixon had been unable to fill the
seat of Associate Justice Abe Fortas, who had resigned in
May 1969.
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