Frequently lost in discussions of the
Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act
passed by the U.S. Congress in 2000 was the method by which
the law was passed.
Both the House and the Senate used a parliamentary
procedure called "unanimous consent." According to the
Senate and House definitions, unanimous consent is "the
practice of agreeing to an action without dissent or
objection by any Member." This procedure is a way to
expedite final action on a bill without a formal vote.
RLUIPA was passed by unanimous consent. We don't know the
names of the members present in the House and Senate
chambers for the vote. All we know is that there was a
quorum present in each chamber. If your senator or
representative was in office at the time, ask him or her if
they had read and understood the legislation and its
implications, and where he or she was when the vote was
taken. In a situation where there are no comments and the
outcome has been determined by the House and Senate
leadership, members of Congress might as well stay home. Our
representatives abdicated their responsibility and hoped
that no one would notice or care.
The goal of the legislation was to reach a reasonable and
constitutionally sound balance between respecting the
compelling interests of government and protecting the
ability of people to freely exercise their religion. It was
not meant to provide developers with a free rein to create a
non-accredited college and attached housing to fatten their
wallets at the expense of the community. It was not meant to
provide religious institutions with immunity from land-use
regulation or to relieve religious institutions from
applying for variances, special permits or exceptions. It
was not meant for the leadership of the Town of Ramapo to
use RLUIPA as a means of increasing the strength of its
political machine and creating the demographics to ensure
re-election. It was not meant to satisfy Ramapo builders and
real estate interests.
It is unlikely that we will have in the foreseeable
future a Congress with sufficient backbone to revise this
legislation. The ultimate decision of whether Congress has
exceeded its authority in passing this law will be made by
the courts and not by the influence of builders with deep
pockets.