The Supreme Court Looks Likely to Give Religious Groups Another Win

Crafting a ruling, however, may be more complicated for the justices in practice. In normal circumstances, interpreting a state law would have minimal effects on other state laws because lawmakers rarely draft identical statutes. Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission is the rare exception. Wisconsin’s religious-purpose exemption uses identical language to the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, which shapes unemployment insurance programs nationwide. Forty-six other states have adopted that common statutory language either wholesale or in large part.

As a result, if the Supreme Court sides with Catholic Charities on constitutional grounds, it could have much broader implications for unemployment benefit programs outside of Wisconsin. The Catholic Healthcare Association of the United States, for example, consists of more than 2,400 hospitals and health care facilities in every state. Protestant denominations are also affiliated with thousands of nonprofit organizations that provide charitable services. Most importantly, the court’s test could influence how states and lower courts deal with tax and regulatory exemptions for religious nonprofits in contexts beyond unemployment insurance.

Colin Roth, who argued for Wisconsin, defended the state’s approach and hinted that the state Supreme Court’s ruling was being misunderstood. “Wisconsin’s search for worship, proselytization, and religious education, much like the ministerial exception, thus does not decide what is religious in the abstract, nor does it discriminate among denominations,” he told the justices. “Instead, these activities are what reasonably limit the exemption to the employers most likely to pose entanglement problems.”