A federal judge blocked a Louisiana law which would have required public schools to display the Ten Commandments. The ruling was not surprising, because state law is against it Supreme Court precedentwhich binds the judges of the lower courts.

But with the attorney general of Louisiana swearing a callthe question arises: Will the supreme court uphold the 1980 precedent if the case goes to trial?

We won’t know unless and until the case gets there, but it won’t surprise anyone to hear that this isn’t the same court from decades ago. Indeed, Election Day cemented its Republican-appointed supermajority for the years to come.

So what is this 1980 ruling and how does it apply to Louisiana law?

The acting came in a Kentucky case called Stone v. Graham. The court said there: “If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments are to have any effect, it will be to induce school children to read, meditate, perhaps revere and obey the Commandments. However desirable this may be as a matter of private devotion, it is not a permissible state objective under the Establishment Clause.”

The First Amendment say that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” but the Supreme Court was more concerned with protecting the free exercise part than the establishment part. in recent years.

However, Stone’s precedent is still in evidence. In his opinion Tuesday in the Louisiana case, U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles noticed that “Stone it remains good law and is straight to the point.” Obama’s representative wrote that he “remains bound to follow Stone until the Supreme Court rejects it.”

Again, that raises the question of whether the court will overturn it. On that note, I should point out that even in 1980, the Stone decision was not unanimous and was summarily decided. One of the dissenting judges was William Rehnquistwho wrote to express his disagreement with “what I cannot forbear to describe as a cavalier summary reversal, without the benefit of oral argument or memoranda on the merits, of the highest court of Kentucky.” Rehnquist wrote that the Establishment Clause “does not require that the public sector be insulated from all things that may have religious significance or origin.”

As it happens, Chief Justice John Roberts clerked for Rehnquist in 1980. Roberts and his fellow GOP appointees probably agree more with Rehnquist than the Stone majority. So an appeal in the Louisiana case could give today’s court a chance to overturn another precedent and further erode the Establishment Clause.

The federal appeals court covering Louisiana is the 5th Circuit, which has judges who are even further to the right of the Supreme Court. So we’ll have to see what the 5th Circuit does, but it could put challengers to the Louisiana law in the position of having to turn to the Roberts Court for relief.

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