Taxpayers Can Sue the Government Over Unconstitutional Practices
The Supreme Court, on this day in Flast v. Cohen, ruled that taxpayers do have standing to sue the government for spending money on unconstitutional practices.
Florence Flast and others had sued Wilber Cohen, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, because HEW was spending funds on religious schools in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The District Court had ruled that Flast lacked standing to sue, and the Supreme Court overturned that ruling.
The decision did not address the question of whether the spending in question (on religious schools) was unconstitutional. The spending in question was authorized by the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which in a major compromise authorized some limited categories of government funds for private and parochial schools. See November 8, 1965.
In a related matter, in Walz v. Tax Commission (decided on May 4, 1970), the Supreme Court ruled that tax exemptions for religious institutions did not violate the Establishment Clause.
The Court: “While we express no view at all on the merits of appellants’ claims in this case, their complaint contains sufficient allegations under the criteria we have outlined to give them standing to invoke a federal court’s jurisdiction for an adjudication on the merits.”
Learn more about the Establishment Clause: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/category/religion