Court narrows some church-state challenges

WASHINGTON, April 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 Tuesday that challengers of Arizona's tuition tax credits lack standing to attack the credits in court.

Dissenters said the ruling is a major break with 50 years of high court precedent on using the "establishment" of religion clause in the First Amendment to challenge a tax system that helps religion.

The justices split along the Supreme Court's ideological fault line.

Arizona law gives tax credits for contributions to school tuition organizations, which in turn use the contributions to provide scholarships to students attending private schools, including religious schools.

A group of Arizona taxpayers challenged the tax credits, using the First Amendment's ban on the "establishment" of religion.

A U.S. judge threw out the suit, but the federal appeals court in San Francisco reversed, saying the group as taxpayers had standing under Supreme Court precedent to file an "establishment" claim.

The narrow Supreme Court majority reversed the appeals court, saying that because the group challenged a tax credit instead of government expenditure, it had no constitutional standing. Under Article III, the group must claim more than the interest of all citizens in "constitutional governance." It must also show an "injury in fact" that can be redressed.

In order to find "a particular injury in fact," a court would have to speculate that Arizona lawmakers react to revenue shortfalls by increasing the tax liability of the challengers, the majority said.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion and was joined by the court's other four conservatives.

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent for the four-member liberal bloc.

"Since its inception, the Arizona private-school-tuition tax credit has cost the state, by its own estimate, nearly $350 million in diverted tax revenue," Kagan wrote. Moreover, the scholarships generated by the tax credit are funneled to students on the basis of religion.

"For almost half a century, litigants like the plaintiffs have obtained judicial review of claims that the government has used its taxing and spending power in violation of the establishment clause," Kagan wrote. " ... Today, the court {majority} breaks from this precedent by refusing to hear taxpayers' claims that the government has unconstitutionally subsidized religion through its tax system."