Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-1195_g314.pdf
Page Number: 83.0

2 

ESPINOZA v. MONTANA DEPT. OF REVENUE 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

Court invokes that precedent to require a State to subsidize 
religious  schools  if  it  enacts  an  education  tax  credit.    Be-
cause this decision further “slights both our precedents and
our history” and “weakens this country’s longstanding com-
mitment  to  a  separation  of  church  and  state  beneficial  to 
both,” ibid., I respectfully dissent. 

I 
A 
The  Montana  Supreme  Court  invalidated  a  state  tax-
credit program because it was inconsistent with the Mon-
tana Constitution’s “no-aid provision,” Art. X, §6(1), which 
forbids government appropriations for sectarian purposes,
including  funding  religious  schools.  393  Mont.  446,  467– 
468, 435 P. 3d 603, 614 (2018).  In so doing, the court ex-
pressly  declined  to  resolve  federal  constitutional  issues. 
“Having concluded the Tax Credit Program violates” the no-
aid provision, the court held, “it is not necessary to consider
federal precedent interpreting the First Amendment’s less-
restrictive Establishment Clause.”  Ibid.  So too the court 
declined to ground its holding on the Free Exercise Clause.  
Ibid.    The  court  also  remedied  the  only  potential  harm  of
discriminatory treatment by striking down the program al-
together.  After  the  state  court’s  decision,  neither  secular 
nor sectarian schools receive the program’s tax benefits. 

Petitioners’  free  exercise  claim  is  not  cognizable.  The 
Free Exercise Clause, the Court has said, protects against 
“indirect  coercion  or  penalties  on  the  free  exercise  of  reli-
gion.”  Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Assn., 
485 U. S. 439, 450 (1988).  Accordingly, this Court’s cases
have  required  not  only  differential  treatment,  cf.  ante,  at 
11–12,  but  also  a  resulting  burden  on  religious  exercise, 
Lyng, 485 U. S., at 450–451. 

Neither  differential  treatment  nor  coercion  exists  here 
because the Montana Supreme Court invalidated the tax-
credit program entirely.  393 Mont., at 467–468, 435 P. 3d,