U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) speaks on Senate Democrats amicus brief in support of the government's position in the case of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.
Legislative intent is supposed to be one of the critical factors courts consider when deciding challenges. To that end, scores of congressional Democrats—most of whom were around when both the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Affordable Care Act were passed—have provided briefs to the Supreme Court in the
Hobby Lobby and
Conestoga Wood challenges over the ACA's requirement that most employers provide health insurance for their employees that covers contraception without copay. Both
Senate and House Democrats have submitted briefs.
The senators, led by Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), on Tuesday filed an amicus brief on the upcoming Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood cases set to be heard late March, arguing that "secular, for-profit corporations" have no legal right to an exemption from the health care law's birth control mandate.
[...] They argue that RFRA's text and legislative history contradict the challengers' claims that they should be exempt from the birth control rule because it runs afoul of RFRA.
"Exempting secular, for-profit corporations from the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive-coverage requirement is inconsistent with RFRA's legislative history and intent, and undermines the Affordable Care Act’s carefully crafted balance between a compelling governmental interest and individual free-exercise rights," the senators write. [...] "Congress could have explicitly included secular for-profit corporations in RFRA. It did not."
House Democratic leadership, along with
87 rank and file members provide a similar argument: "The contraceptive coverage requirement does not substantially burden any exercise of religion in which the Corporations might be found to engage because it does not compel the Corporations to administer or use the contraceptive methods to which they object, nor does it require them to adhere to, affirm, or abandon a particular belief."
The Court will hear the case in late March.