The Universe of Discourse

James Blaine keeps turning up

Today I learned that James Blaine (U.S. Speaker of the House, senator, perennial presidential candidate, and Secretary of State under Presidents Cleveland, Garfield, and Arthur; previously) was the namesake of the notorious “Blaine Amendments”. These are still an ongoing legal issue!

The Blaine Amendment was a proposed U.S. constitutional amendment rooted in anti-Catholic, anti-immigrant sentiment, at a time when the scary immigrant bogeymen were Irish and Italian Catholics.

The amendment would have prevented the U.S. federal government from providing aid to any educational institution with a religious affiliation; the specific intention was to make Catholic parochial schools ineligible for federal education funds. The federal amendment failed, but many states adopted it and still have it in their state constitutions.

Here we are 150 years later and this is still an issue! It was the subject of the 2017 Supreme Court case Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer. My quick summary is:

1. The Missouri state Department of Natural Resources had a program offering grants to licensed daycare facilities to resurface their playgrounds with shredded tires.

2. In 2012, a daycare facility operated by Trinity Lutheran church ranked fifth out of 44 applicants according to the department’s criteria.

3. 14 of the 44 applicants received grants, but Trinity Lutheran's daycare was denied, because the Missouri constitution has a Blaine Amendment.

4. The Court found (7–2) that denying the grant to an otherwise qualified daycare just because of its religious affiliation was a violation of the Constitution's promises of free exercise of religion. (Full opinion)

It's interesting to me that now that Blaine is someone I recognize, he keeps turning up. He was really important, a major player in national politics for thirty years. But who remembers him now?

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