Supreme Court refuses to hear 2 First Amendment cases

By The Associated Press

04.30.01

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today refused to hear two cases with First Amendment implications.

In one case, the high court let stand a California court decision that religious organizations are exempt from local landmark preservation laws. In the other, the justices rejected former Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader's bid to bar corporate underwriting of presidential and vice presidential debates.

Acting today in East Bay Asian Local Development Corp. v. California, the court, without comment, turned down a challenge to a California law allowing church groups to raze and replace historic buildings.

Opponents say the 1994 law gives unconstitutional preference to religion, and puts secular groups at a competitive disadvantage in the real estate market.

The law stops cities and counties from enforcing preservation laws against property owned by religious organizations if the church groups request exemption and explain their reasons.

The law was passed after the local Catholic archdiocese announced plans to close nine parish churches in San Francisco, prompting some to threaten court challenges.

Preservationists and other opponents won a round in 1996, when a judge ruled the law favored religious organizations and was unconstitutional.

A midlevel appeals court overruled that decision in 1999, saying that the Constitution allows religious organizations freedom to decide which of their buildings to preserve.

The California Supreme Court majority followed the same reasoning when it ruled in December that the law was constitutional.

A San Francisco nonprofit housing and economic development group and a group of preservation and historical organizations appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming that the law violates the First Amendment prohibition on government "establishment of religion."

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer asked the high court to stay out of the case. The state should be able to grant exemptions to church property when complying with architectural and preservation rules would "impair achievement of their religious mission," Lockyer argued.

Meanwhile, the justices, without comment, also refused to hear Nader v. Federal Election Commission. In that case, Nader, celebrity supporters Susan Sarandon and Phil Donahue and other Green Party candidates had argued that allowing corporations to fund debates violated federal campaign-finance law.

Two lower federal courts also considered the case, which arose from Nader's more general complaint that the national debates are unfair to candidates outside the two major political parties.

Nader sued the Federal Election Commission to change the way the elections agency governs debate funding. The FEC rules allow corporate donations to help fund nationally televised debates so long as the debates themselves are organized and staged by a nonprofit organization.

That "opened the spigot of impermissible corporate influence," that Congress created the FEC to address, Nader argued.

"The FEC's illegal regulations have permitted major corporations that have deep financial interests in federal legislative and regulatory affairs to sponsor presidential and vice presidential debates," Nader's lawyers argued.

Nader claimed the debate system denied him a fair shot at the presidency.

Acting Solicitor General Barbara Underwood, writing for the federal government, urged the high court to stay out of the Nader case.

Although the Supreme Court has upheld some restrictions on corporate campaign spending, the FEC has latitude and is not required "to adopt the most restrictive interpretation possible regarding corporate financial assistance to nonprofit, nonpartisan debate-sponsoring organizations," the government wrote.

Nader sued ahead of the October debates last year. A federal judge in Boston turned him down in September, and the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against him in November.

AT&T, Anheuser-Busch and Sun Microsystems were among companies that made tax-deductible contributions to the nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates last year.

Nader, a longtime consumer advocate, carried about 3% of the vote nationally, and said his main aim was to establish the Green Party as a national force.

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Former Green Party candidate had sued Commission on Presidential Debates after being barred from Boston event.  04.16.02