U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action, and Federal Rights, filed an amicus brief on July 29 in defense of the original meaning of the Establishment Clause in Cave v. Jester. The brief is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and urges the court to reverse a ruling that ordered Arkansas’s Ten Commandments monument removed from State Capitol grounds.
In his filing, Cruz said, “The district court ignored significant changes in Establishment Clause jurisprudence when it held that plaintiffs offended by a government display of the Ten Commandments have standing to challenge it, and that such a display violates the First Amendment. Standing for offended observers has never been embraced by the Supreme Court, and was instead squeezed by lower courts directly from Lemon, a decision that no longer has any import in this Court’s jurisprudence.”
Cruz further said, “The Constitution limits the judicial power to deciding ‘Cases’ and ‘Controversies.’…‘The law of Article III standing,’ the Supreme Court has said, ‘is built on separation-of-powers principles, [and] serves to prevent the judicial process from being used to usurp the powers of the political branches.’” He added that plaintiffs cannot allege coercion simply by being offended at a passive religious display: “Plaintiffs here cannot allege that the passive display of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of State Capitol forces them to participate in religious practices or attend church… Merely being offended by its presence does not amount to coercion.”
According to Cruz’s amicus brief, “And as the Supreme Court has now held, the ‘legally protected interest’ the Establishment Clause protects against… is religious coercion.”
Cruz serves as U.S. Senator representing Texas and previously served as solicitor general for Texas and clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist on the U.S. Supreme Court; he graduated cum laude from Princeton University and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School; he champions constitutional liberties and other policies, according to the official website.
The case remains under consideration at this time.