Supreme Court Sends Birth-Control Case Brought by Religious Employers Back to Lower Courts
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Outcome suggests justices would have split 4-4 on the merits of the case.
The Supreme Court on Monday dodged ruling on litigation brought by religious employers that objected to an Obama administration regulations requiring contraception coverage in workers’ insurance plans, the latest example of the court’s near paralysis in resolving closely-divided issues without a ninth vote.
The outcome all but assures the issue that stems from the 2010 health-care law will remain unresolved for the remainder of the Obama administration, and it almost certainly resulted from the vacancy left by the February death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
In a terse, unsigned opinion, the court sent the issue back to the lower courts. The justices asked those courts to review whether recent movement in the parties’ positions could resolve the question, though April briefs filed by the parties didn’t put them closer on a compromise.
After hearing arguments in the case in March, the justices themselves—who appeared potentially deadlocked at the argument—had nudged religious organizations and the government to file briefs on a potential solution to resolve the case. In the extraordinary order, the justices asked them to address whether contraceptives could be provided through the employers’ “insurance companies, but in a way that does not require any involvement of petitioners beyond their own decision to provide health insurance without contraceptive coverage to their employees.”
The two sides have been wrestling for more than four years to balance the Obama administration’s desire to allow workers to easily get the coverage with no out-of-pocket costs against the objection of religious employers to offering or paying for contraception.
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