Ralph Harrison Benning v. William F. Amideo

PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

The issues presented in this appeal are whether Congress exceeded its authority under the Spending Clause of the Constitution or violated either the Establishment Clause or the Tenth Amendment in enacting section 3 of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUI-PA), which requires state prisons that receive federal funds to refrain from burdening the religious exercise of prisoners. Because Congress properly exercised its spending power by unambiguously conditioning the use of federal funds for state prisons on the related accommodation of the religious…