## Facts

- Archbishop Patrick Flores sought a permit to expand St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Boerne, Texas, asserting the congregation had outgrown the existing building.
- The church was located in a designated historic district and classified as a contributing property under a local historic preservation ordinance.
- The City denied the permit based on the ordinance’s limits on additions and new construction in the district.
- The Archbishop sued, alleging the denial imposed a substantial burden on religious exercise in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA).
- RFRA required government (including state and local governments) to justify any substantial burden on religious exercise under a compelling-interest and least-restrictive-means test.
- The district court held RFRA unconstitutional as beyond Congress’s enforcement power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment; the Fifth Circuit reversed and upheld RFRA.
- The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether RFRA could be applied to state and local governments under § 5.

## Issues

1. Whether Congress exceeded its § 5 Fourteenth Amendment enforcement power by subjecting state and local laws to RFRA’s compelling-interest/least-restrictive-means test.
2. Whether § 5 authorizes Congress to impose a statutory standard that effectively expands Free Exercise protections beyond the Court’s constitutional doctrine.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit and held RFRA unconstitutional as applied to states and their subdivisions.
- The Court ruled that § 5 authorizes Congress to enforce constitutional rights through remedial legislation, but not to redefine the scope of those rights.
- The Court announced that valid § 5 legislation must show “congruence and proportionality” between the constitutional injury to be prevented or remedied and the legislative means chosen.
- RFRA failed that test because it imposed a broad strict-scrutiny regime on virtually all state and local laws burdening religion without a sufficient record of widespread, state-sponsored constitutional violations justifying such a sweeping remedy.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the Court’s holding.

## Legal Principles

- Congress’s § 5 power is remedial: it may prevent or remedy constitutional violations, but may not alter the meaning of constitutional rights as defined by the judiciary.
- A § 5 statute must be congruent and proportional to the pattern of unconstitutional conduct it targets.
- A statute that applies across the board to all state and local laws, without a strong legislative record of constitutional violations warranting such breadth, exceeds § 5 enforcement authority.
- The judiciary retains final authority to determine the content of constitutional rights; Congress cannot supersede constitutional doctrine by imposing a different, more demanding test on the states.

## Conclusion

The Court invalidated RFRA as applied to state and local governments, holding that Congress may not use § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to expand substantive constitutional protections and that enforcement legislation must be congruent and proportional to documented constitutional violations.


City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997)