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Conservative Eras In Supreme Court Decision Making: Employment Division V. Smith, Judicial Restraint, And Neoconservatism, Stephen M. Feldman

Stephen M. Feldman

Commentators often describe Employment Division v. Smith as the beginning of a new era in free exercise decision-making. Before Smith, the Supreme Court typically articulated and applied a strict scrutiny standard to resolve free exercise exemption claims. After Smith, the Court deferred to the political process, upholding any reasonable law of general applicability. From a doctrinal standpoint, this description of Smith is perfectly accurate and informative. In this Essay, I argue that from a legal-political standpoint, Smith manifests the culmination of one type of judicial conservatism -- a traditionalist conservatism that had been developing since the 1970s. Judicial restraint and …