Opinion ID: 6111825
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Facial Challenge to the CDEA

Text: Plaintiffs argue the district court erred in concluding they were unlikely to succeed on their claim that the CDEA facially violates the Free Exercise Clause. When faced with a claim that a law violates the right to free exercise of religion, courts often apply strict scrutiny, a difficult standard that requires the government to justify the law with a compelling government interest and show that the law is narrowly tailored to advance that interest. See Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 546 (1993). But such strict scrutiny does not always apply to free-exercise claims. Critically, for our purposes, “a law that is [1] neutral and [2] of general applicability need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest even if the law has the incidental effect of burdening a particular religious practice.” Id. at 531. Instead, a neutral and generally applicable law “need only be rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest to survive a constitutional challenge.” Grace United Methodist Church v. City of Cheyenne, 451 F.3d 643, 649 (10th Cir. 2006). That is, a neutral and generally applicable law is much more likely 18 Appellate Case: 20-1391 Document: 010110636013 Date Filed: 01/24/2022 Page: 19 to survive a constitutional challenge. See id. at 659 (noting “little doubt” that neutral and generally applicable zoning law survived rational-basis review). Here, the district court concluded that the CDEA was both neutral and generally applicable, rejecting plaintiffs’ position “that the CDEA exempts certain secular institutions from its mandates and thus favors those institutions over religious institutions.” App. vol. 6, 1424. Because that conclusion rendered the law subject to rational-basis review, plaintiffs’ constitutional challenge was not substantially likely to succeed. On appeal, plaintiffs concede the CDEA’s language is neutral but again assert that the CDEA is not generally applicable because “it facially classifies hundreds of thousands of Coloradans as being exempt . . . and in application, exempts even more groups than the statute permits.” Aplt. Br. 20. Thus, plaintiffs contend, the district court erred by finding the statute was generally applicable (and therefore not subject to strict scrutiny). See Lukumi Babalu, 508 U.S. at 531–32. A law is not generally applicable when it imposes “burdens only on conduct motivated by religious belief.” Id. at 543. For instance, in Lukumi Babalu, city ordinances prohibiting animal sacrifice but allowing the killing of animals in a variety of other contexts were not generally applicable because they furthered the city’s governmental interests in protecting public health and preventing animal cruelty “only against conduct motivated by religious belief.” Id. at 543, 545. Likewise, we have held “[a] rule that is discriminatorily motivated and applied is not a neutral rule of general applicability.” Axson-Flynn v. Johnson, 356 F.3d 1277, 1294 19 Appellate Case: 20-1391 Document: 010110636013 Date Filed: 01/24/2022 Page: 20 (10th Cir. 2004). Accordingly, in Axson-Flynn, we remanded for further proceedings on whether a rule that theater students adhere precisely to their scripts, under which a Mormon student was required to use profane language, “was discriminatorily applied to religious conduct (and thus was not generally applicable).” Id. at 1280, 1294. On the other hand, the mere existence of “a secular exemption” does not “automatically create[] a claim for a religious exemption.” Grace United Methodist Church, 451 F.3d at 651. Thus, we have held that a zoning law (under which a church was not permitted to operate a daycare in a particular location) was generally applicable because there was no evidence of discriminatory motivation or application. See id. at 651–55. Here, a review of the CDEA shows that it is more like the generally applicable zoning law in Grace Methodist than the religiously targeted or discriminatorily applied laws in Lukumi Babalu and Axson-Flynn. Colorado enacted the CDEA to limit the “vulnerability of people and communities of [Colorado] to damage, injury, and loss of life and property resulting from all[ ]hazards, including natural catastrophes” such as epidemics. Colo. Rev. Stat. § 24-33.5-702(1)(a). To that end, the CDEA empowers the governor to declare a disaster emergency and issue executive orders to combat such disaster. Id. § 24-33.5-704(4). And in the provisions plaintiffs highlight, the CDEA provides that “[n]othing” in it “shall be construed to[] (a) [i]nterfere with the course or conduct of a labor dispute; . . . (b) [i]nterfere with dissemination of news or comment on public affairs; . . . [or] (c) [a]ffect the jurisdiction or responsibilities of police forces, fire-fighting forces, or units of the 20 Appellate Case: 20-1391 Document: 010110636013 Date Filed: 01/24/2022 Page: 21 armed forces of the United States.” Id. § 24-35.5-702(2)(a)-(c). According to plaintiffs, these provisions are “sweeping facial exemptions [that] negate any argument that [the] CDEA is generally applicable.” Aplt. Br. 24. But this argument ignores the plain language of the statute. As the district court noted, the so-called exemption for labor disputes does not actually operate as an exemption. By its own terms, this provision actually allows interference “with the course or conduct of a labor dispute” when such interference is “necessary to forestall or mitigate imminent or existing danger to public health or safety.” § 2433.5-702(2)(a). Similarly, the police provision is not an exemption; as the district court explained, it is “an acknowledgement” that the CDEA does not allow the governor “to control law enforcement or armed forces not within his [or her] purview.” App. vol. 6, 1425. And the exemption for news media simply prevents interference with the “dissemination of news,” § 24-33.5-702(2)(b); it does not entirely exclude news organizations from the CDEA. The district court accurately characterized this exception as “giv[ing] effect to the First Amendment’s Free Speech Clause, which prohibits laws that infringe the right to speak.” App. vol. 6, 1424. That the CDEA gives such effect expressly does not mean the statute facially violates the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause by not mentioning a similar express exemption for the free exercise of religion. Notably, under a prior version of the primary publichealth order issued in the emergency disaster occasioned by the pandemic, the State placed news organizations and houses of worship in the same category and imposed 21 Appellate Case: 20-1391 Document: 010110636013 Date Filed: 01/24/2022 Page: 22 the same restrictions on both. Thus, despite plaintiffs’ emphasis on the number of individuals potentially touched by the so-called exemptions in the CDEA, those exemptions do not operate as broadly as plaintiffs would have it. And the mere existence of a secular exemption is not sufficient to establish a claim for a religious exemption. See Grace United, 451 F.3d at 651. Further, plaintiffs point to no evidence of discriminatory motivation or application, see Axson-Flynn, 356 F.3d at 1294; nor do they argue that the CDEA imposes restrictions only on conduct motivated by religious belief, see LukumiBabalu, 508 U.S. at 543. Indeed, other than citing three Supreme Court cases for general propositions of free-exercise law, plaintiffs cite no caselaw supporting their assertion that the CDEA is not generally applicable. Thus, because the CDEA appears to be neutral and generally applicable (and therefore subject only to the low bar of rational-basis review), plaintiffs fail to make the required strong showing of a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the CDEA is facially unconstitutional. Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying a preliminary injunction on this claim.