Opinion ID: 2996636
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Unambiguous conditions

Text: The second part of the Dole test requires that Congress make unambiguous the presence of any conditions attached to the receipt of federal funds. Dole, 483 U.S. at 207. Under the plain language of RLUIPA, Congress conditioned the receipt of federal money upon States refraining from creating substantial burdens on prisoners’ religious rights that are not justified by a compelling governmental interest and are not furthered by the least restrictive means possible. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(a). The Supreme Court has directed that “[t]he crucial inquiry, however, is . . . whether Congress spoke so clearly that we can fairly say that the State could make an informed choice.” Pennhurst State Sch. and Hosp. v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 25 (1981). As the Mayweathers court noted, Congress is not required to list every factual instance in which a state will fail to comply with a condition. Such specificity would prove too onerous, and perhaps, impossible. Congress must, however, make the existence of the condition itself—in exchange for the receipt of federal funds—explicitly obvious. Mayweathers, 314 F.3d at 1067. Thus, the exact nature of the conditions may be “largely indeterminate,” provided that the existence of the conditions is clear, such that States have notice that compliance with the conditions is required. Id. (citing Pennhurst, 451 U.S. at 24-25). 8 No. 02-3572 The DOC argues that RLUIPA’s conditions are ambiguous because the statute employs a “least restrictive means” test. According to the DOC, Pennhurst stands for the proposition that the least restrictive means test is too indefinite a standard under which to impose conditions upon the receipt of federal funding. In other words, there is too much guesswork involved. The DOC’s reading of Pennhurst, however, is not one we are willing to adopt. At issue in Pennhurst was whether the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 1975, 42 U.S.C. § 6000 et seq., had as a condition of accepting federal funding the requirement that States provide “appropriate treatment” to disabled residents in the “least restrictive environment.” Pennhurst, 451 U.S. at 18. The lower courts had held that the statute created substantive rights in favor of residents to receive that type of treatment. Id. The Supreme Court found otherwise, concluding that language regarding “appropriate treatment” and the “least restrictive environment” merely reflected Congress’ justification, or policy goals, for appropriating federal money to the States through the Act, not conditions associated with the receipt of federal funds. Id. at 19, 23. Further, other portions of the Act more clearly spelled out the conditions attached to the receipt of federal funding than the language at issue in Pennhurst. Id. at 23. Accordingly, the Court stated that it “strains credulity” to argue that States should have known of the supposed obligations imposed by Congress for which the disabled residents were arguing. Id. at 25. As for RLUIPA, we find that Congress clearly and unambiguously attached conditions to the acceptance of federal funding for prisons, and that the State of Wisconsin, particularly the DOC, was put on notice of those conditions. As the Mayweathers court noted, Congress cannot delineate every instance in which a State may or may not comply with the least restrictive means test; it No. 02-3572 9 is simply impossible to do. There are far too many circumstances affecting the States in different ways for Congress to have envisioned all aspects of compliance and noncompliance. Rather, Congress permissibly conditioned the receipt of federal money in such a way that each State is made aware of the condition and is simultaneously given the freedom to tailor compliance according to its particular penological interests and circumstances. If the DOC objected to the imposition of the least restrictive means test, it certainly could have refused federal funding. 3. Conditions must be related to a federal interest The Dole Court’s third requirement is that any conditions attached to federal funding be related to a federal interest. New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 167 (1992); Dole, 483 U.S. at 207. We discussed above the relationship between RLUIPA and Congress’ pursuit of the general welfare and pause here to note again how that relationship contributes to the third Dole factor. Congress has an interest in allocating federal funds to institutions that do not engage in discriminatory behavior or in conduct that infringes impermissibly upon individual liberties. In the context of protecting prisoners’ religious rights, Congress also seeks to promote the rehabilitation of prisoners, a process in which religion can play an important role. Mayweathers, 314 F.3d at 1067; see also Freedom from Religion Found., Inc. v. McCallum, 324 F.3d 880, 882, 883-84 (7th Cir. 2003) (noting importance of religion to the rehabilitation of some substance abusers in rejecting an Establishment Clause challenge to Wisconsin’s use of faith-based halfway house for parolees). The DOC argues that the conditions imposed by RLUIPA cannot be related to a federal interest because the DOC does not allocate any of its federal funding specifically to religious programs in prisons and because federal funds 10 No. 02-3572 comprise roughly 1.6% of the DOC’s annual budget. Those arguments are misplaced. First, the Supreme Court’s decision in Dole upheld the conditioning of federal highway funding upon a State establishing a minimum drinking age. Dole, 483 U.S. at 208. Indeed, a minimum drinking age requirement and federal highway funds shared the same goal—interstate travel safety. Id. Likewise, the goal of federal corrections funding and the conditions imposed by RLUIPA, with respect to the protection of prisoners’ religious rights, share the goal of rehabilitation. That the DOC does not allocate federal funding specifically to religious programs is of no moment. Second, the cases to which the DOC cites in support of its argument that it receives too little federal money to be bound by the conditions of RLUIPA are inapposite; they do not even concern the Spending Clause. Nothing within Spending Clause jurisprudence, or RLUIPA for that matter, suggests that States are bound by the conditional grant of federal money only if the State receives or derives a certain percentage (and, according to the DOC, an amount substantially higher than the 14.5 million dollars it received in 2001) of its budget from federal funds. If a State wishes to receive any federal funding, it must accept the related, unambiguous conditions in their entirety. Accordingly, we find that the conditions imposed by RLUIPA are properly related to an important federal interest. 4. Independent Constitutional bar The final part of the Dole test recognizes that “other constitutional provisions may provide an independent bar to the conditional grant of federal funds.” Dole, 483 U.S. at 208. The DOC’s remaining arguments are that RLUIPA violates Congress’ Commerce Clause authority, the Tenth Amendment, and the Establishment Clause. BeNo. 02-3572 11 cause we find that RLUIPA is valid under the Spending Clause, we need not involve ourselves in arguments concerning the Commerce Clause. Whether or not the Commerce Clause provides an independent justification for RLUIPA does not impact its constitutionality under the Spending Clause. Accordingly, the Commerce Clause could not provide an independent bar to the enactment of RLUIPA.3 Similarly, when Congress engages in a constitutional use of its delegated Article I powers, the Tenth Amendment does not reserve that power to the States. U.S. CONST. amend. X; New York, 505 U.S. at 156; United States v. Wilson, 159 F.3d 280, 287 (7th Cir. 1998). In other words, the Tenth Amendment does not restrict the range of conditions Congress can impose on the receipt of federal funds, even if Congress could not achieve the goal(s) of those conditions directly. Dole, 483 U.S. at 210. The Supreme Court’s reference to an independent constitutional bar “stands for the unexceptionable proposition that the power may not be used to induce the States to engage in activities that would themselves be unconstitutional.” Id. The DOC’s final hope, therefore, is that we find that RLUIPA violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, thereby providing an independent bar to RLUIPA’s conditions. 3 We further note, though no party mentioned this fact, that the DOC admitted to sending approximately 4,000 of its inmates to out-of-state facilities because of overcrowding. The DOC does not contend, nor would we expect, that IMPs #6 and #6A do not apply to these inmates simply because they are housed out of the state. That fact, in our view, lends validity to RLUIPA’s constitutionality under the Commerce Clause in this case. The DOC certainly engages in interstate commerce to properly handle the requests for religious and other personal property from inmates housed outside Wisconsin. 12 No. 02-3572