Committee Comments

The United States Supreme Court decided in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), that the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause does not protect religiously-motivated behavior that conflicts with a neutral law of general applicability. Congress attempted to override the Smith decision by enacting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 ("RFRA"), Pub. L. No. 101-141, 107 Stat. 1488, codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000bb (1995), et seq., but in City of Boerne v. Flores, 521 U.S. 507 (1997), the Supreme Court struck down the RFRA on the grounds that it exceeded Congress' enforcement powers.