{"id":720,"date":"2026-06-23T21:39:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T21:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=720"},"modified":"2026-06-23T21:39:41","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T21:39:41","slug":"the-supreme-court-deals-major-blow-to-congressional-authority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=720","title":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court Deals Major Blow to Congressional Authority"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a single opinion, <\/span>the Supreme Court on Tuesday took a swipe at Congressional authority while at the same time stripping some victims of religious violations the ability to sue over illegal treatment. The decision weakens a law guaranteeing freedom of religious expression in federally-funded prisons. But with time, the ruling may prove far moredisastrous and far-reaching, unleashing illegal behavior that both Congress and the victims are powerless to prevent.<\/p>

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The decision achieves this dual result by limiting Congress\u2019 authority to require that terms in its funding laws can be enforcedthrough private suits against the individuals who violate them\u2014making it harder for Congress to give these laws teeth and for victims to seek damages. The Constitution \u201cmay confer on Congress the power to spend money for the general welfare,\u201d Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in his majority opinion, but \u201cit does not \u2018endow Congress with [any] power to regulate conduct.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This attack on Congress and the victims of unlawful behavior stems from a violation of one man\u2019s religious rights while in a federally-funded prison. A former inmate with the Louisiana Department of Corrections, Damon Landor is a devout Rastafarian who follows the religious command not to cut his hair. When he was transferred to a new facility, Landor worried that the intake guards might shave his head, so he brought along a paper copy of a court case explaining his right to keep his hair long. The prison guards threw it in the trash, held him down, and shaved his head. Congress had passed the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act to protect inmates against such abuses, and in that law, gave inmates like Landor the right to sue the individual guards who violated his rights. So in this case, Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections<\/em>, Lander sought damages under RLUIPA from the guards who shaved him.<\/p>\n

Critically for this case, Congress enacted RLUIPA in 2000 under its broad Constitutional authority to spend money for the \u201cgeneral welfare,\u201d or what is known as its Spending Clause authority. In today\u2019s 6-3 decision along partisan and ideological lines, the court\u2019s Republican appointees threw out Landor\u2019s suit and, more broadly, limited Congress\u2019 authority under the Spending Clause. In time, Landor and RLUIPA may prove to be vehicles through which the court\u2019s conservative wing limits Congressional authority\u2014while leaving victims of illegal behavior, like Landor, unable to seek damages.<\/p>\n

Spending clause legislation<\/span> is a common exercise of Congressional authority. As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson\u2019s dissent points out, Congress has used the clause to protect people in federally funded nursing homes and people receiving emergency care at federally funded hospitals. It powers the 1964 Civil Rights Act\u2019s ban on discrimination in federal assistance, combats pollution under the Clean Air Act, and protects Medicare and Medicaid patients\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n

Yet the crux of the majority\u2019s decision in Landor <\/em>is to demote Spending Clause legislation to, essentially, a merecontract between the federal government and the party that receives the funds. Even though the Constitution says no such thing, the Roberts Court declares that Spending Clause legislation can only be enforced against violators who consent to be held liable, in the same way a contract is only valid of both parties consent. Under the court\u2019s new holding,if, as in this case, prison guards violate RLUIPA, Congress\u2019 only enforcement mechanism is to withdraw the prison\u2019sfunding. It\u2019s a cramped vision of Congressional authority that couldultimately allow states and individuals to overrule Congress\u2019 ability to govern.<\/p>\n

The Democratic appointees found the notion ridiculous. The Spending Clause gives Congress the \u201cpower to legislate, not merely to negotiate,\u201d readJackson\u2019s dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. \u201cThe Court reduces some of Congress\u2019s greatest legislative achievements\u2014federal laws that secure civil rights, environmental stability, healthcare, and more\u2014to nothing more than the wheelings-and-dealings of an especially wealthy private party.\u201d<\/p>

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This case is in line with the Roberts Court\u2019s broader project to grow the powers of the president and Supreme Court while limiting Congress\u2019 authority. Often, this happens through decisions that take powers once exercised by Congress and hand them to the president or the courts. But in this case, the court went directly after Congress\u2019 power to pass laws.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that Congress can get around this swipe by adding language to spending laws requiring, in the case of RLUIPA, that guards at federally funded prisons explicitly consent topersonal liability under the law\u2014providing that ingredient necessary to a contractual obligation. The majority decision acknowledges such a workaround could allow Congress to once again authorize private suits. But as the court pursues its limited view of legislative authority, such promises are unlikely to broadlypreserve Congress\u2019 Spending Clause powers.<\/p>\n

One reason to be suspiciousis that the majority\u2019s decision invokes paeans to federalism and states rights\u2014principles that the court has turned to in the past to gut civil rights laws. If Landor prevailed in his argument that the guards are liable under RLUIPA, Gorsuch writes, it\u201cwould be inconsistent with principles of state sovereignty and a federal government of limited and enumerated regulatory powers.\u201d Perhaps, consent alone, achieved by Congress tweaking the language of Spending Clause legislation, will be enough to satisfy the majority\u2019s objections to Landor\u2019s suit and others like it.<\/p>\n

But Landor<\/em>\u2018s limits on legislators and citizens are no outlier. Just one year ago, the court, in another Gorsuch opinion, limited individuals\u2019 ability to protect certain rights as Medicaid recipients through private suits. And on the same day as Landor<\/em>, the same six-justice majority broadly interpreted one law in order to green light certain suits by oil companies, while shutting the courthouse doors to victims of human rights abuses under another law, the Alien Tort Statute.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo tally today,\u201d University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman posted after the court released its opinions, \u201cvictims of human rights violations & beneficiaries of public benefits programs can\u2019t sue. oil companies can.\u201d<\/p>

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In one devastating ruling, the Republican justices disempower ordinary citizens and their elected representatives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Supreme Court Deals Major Blow to Congressional Authority - Moving and Mortgage Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=720\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Supreme Court Deals Major Blow to Congressional Authority - Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In one devastating ruling, the Republican justices disempower ordinary citizens and their elected representatives.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/?p=720\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Moving and Mortgage Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-23T21:39:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/movingandmortgagehub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/b5d2a856936dcbeaeb5559c3b6d721f9.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1125\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=720#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=720\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/6b7c79bcfd888d98f34c5413df7e81a2\"},\"headline\":\"The Supreme Court Deals Major Blow to Congressional Authority\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-23T21:39:41+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=720\"},\"wordCount\":1048,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=720#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/9863e12541fd5b79a395cf85bba76c93.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"Politics\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=720#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=720\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/movingandmortgagehub.com\\\/?p=720\",\"name\":\"The Supreme Court Deals Major Blow to Congressional Authority - 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