City looking to the Supreme Court for ruling in church case

By: JOSE CARVAJAL - Staff Writer | Thursday, February 8, 2007 10:26 PM PST ∞

LAKE ELSINORE ---- The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to step into a legal dispute between the city and a local church and decide on the constitutionality of a 7-year-old federal law that allows churches to override local zoning rules and locate where they want.

The city's lawyers sent to attorneys for the church, Elsinore Christian Center, a copy of a petition addressed to the high court asking it to hear the case.

In the document, the city argues that the law in question strips local governments of a fundamental authority and is unconstitutional because it "mandates religious accommodation."

Because of that, the petition states, the court should overturn a decision made last year by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding the law, the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, which was signed by President Clinton in 2000.

In August, the 9th Circuit backed a lower court decision that the city unconstitutionally prevented the church from moving into an old Main Street grocery store.

Supreme Court officials said Thursday that they could not confirm whether the court had received the petition. It is possible that it is still being processed, the officials said.

Just because the city asked the high court to step in doesn't mean it will. The court's rules allow it to handpick the cases it hears, and it only hears a small fraction of the cases it is asked to take up.

Kevin J. Hasson, president of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty ---- the national organization that argued the Lake Elsinore church's case in the appeals court ---- said that there's a good chance the Supreme Court will sit this one out.

The court tends not to accept cases that are still being resolved in the lower courts, he said, noting that the district court must still decide how much, if any, the city owes the church in damages. The church will be seeking nearly $2 million in the damages phase of the case scheduled for this summer.

That, and the fact that courts across the country have resoundingly found the law to be constitutional, make it less likely that the high court will hear this case, Hasson said.

"Asking the Supreme Court to take a case is always a long shot," he said. "This shot looks to me a lot longer than most."

The Irvine-based attorney representing the city did not return calls seeking comment on Thursday.

But City Attorney Barbara Leibold said that several recently decided cases have chipped away at the unanimity of courts across the country. Leibold could not provide more details because, she said, she is not directly handling the case.

Technically, the city would not make the decision to seek the appeal.

That decision was made by the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority, which provides liability insurance to more than 100 local governments across the state. The authority hired the Orange County law firm Kutak Rock to handle the city's case. That firm sent the petition on the city's behalf.

While the city was not directly involved in the decision, City Councilman Bob Schiffner said he nonetheless supported it. He was on the council when it declined the church's request for a permit to move into the downtown store.

Council members said back then that they wanted to keep the building zoned for commercial purposes.

"We don't think we violated the law," Schiffner said. "We didn't do anything discriminatory toward the church. Our decision was based on the fact that we didn't want to do away with a grocery store."

At least two courts have disagreed, deciding that the city broke the 2000 law when it imposed too big a burden on the church by declining to grant it a permit to move. Now, the city is asking the Supreme Court to find that law to be unconstitutional.

When the high court might decide whether it wants to step in was not clear Thursday.

-- Contact staff writer Jose Carvajal at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2624, or jcarvajal@californian.com.