National Notes
President Donald J. Trump was inaugurated January 20, beginning his “first 100 days” countdown. By all measures, the new president began with a flurry of activity, to the point of cutting short the Inaugural Parade so that he could get to work. The newly elected Congress convened on January 3 to begin its work.
Some of the items of interest to Christian schools include: Affordable Care Act
• On his first day, the President signed an executive order on the Affordable Care Act which directed the executive branch to “exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from or delay implementation of any provision or requirement of the Act” that would impose a cost or regulatory burden on individuals, families, patients, insurers, doctors, and more.
• Prior to the inauguration, both chambers of Congress began parliamentary efforts to set the stage to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Combined with the executive order, these were the first significant steps toward actual changes to the ACA. Christian schools have an interest in the process because of the religious liberty implications of being forced to provide coverage of potentially abortifacient contraception as well as the employer and individual mandates.
• The House unveiled two bills March 6, marking the first concrete legislation designed to “repeal and replace” the ACA. This is only the beginning of the legislative process of the increasingly controversial measures.
Transgender Issues
• ACSI was one of 22 “friends of the court” in a January 10 amicus brief by the First Liberty Institute to the Supreme Court supporting Gloucester County, Virginia’s position in a transgender case. The county offered accommodations for a transgender student which were rejected in favor of facilities of the opposite biological sex based on a private letter from an Education Department official to the student.
• On February 22, 2017, the Departments of Justice and Education withdrew their May 2016 “guidance” on Title IX that redefined the term “sex” and required extensive, novel accommodations for transgender students. The withdrawal of the controversial guidance restores the nearly 50-year-old understanding of “sex” to mean biologically male and female. The action does not authorize unfair treatment or bullying of transgender students. It merely returns to the standards of rights and protections in which all students share.
George Tryfiates, ACSI Director for Government Affairs
• As a result of the new guidance, on March 6, the Supreme Court remanded the Gloucester case to the Fourth Circuit for further review.
Supreme Court Nomination
President Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court on January 3, 2017. Gorsuch was a judge on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, to which post he earned unanimous Senate confirmation. Among many fine qualities, according to the Daily Signal (1/31/17), “Gorsuch ruled in two major religious liberty cases that came before the Tenth Circuit challenging the Obamacare mandate that employers pay for birth control and abortion-inducing drugs for employees, siding with Hobby Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor in the two cases.” He was confirmed to the Supreme Court on April 7.
Disapproval of ESSA Regulations
By mid-March, both houses of Congress had passed disapproval resolutions to overturn Obama administration regulations on teacher preparation and state/local accountability under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
School Choice
The reauthorization of the District of Columbia Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP) awaits action, most likely through budgetary processes. Congress must pass a final budget bill of some kind by April 28. In the meantime, the House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR) Committee began work on a freestanding reauthorization bill, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results (SOAR) Act in early March.
Religious Liberty
• A draft of a Trump administration religious liberty executive order was leaked to the media and created a firestorm of opposition, causing the administration to delay it. The draft offered strong protections; for now, we await further action.
• The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the Trinity Lutheran case on April 19, 2017. ACSI joined two amicus briefs as the case made its way through the courts. The case involves a religious preschool which the state of Missouri excluded from a program to provide recycled tire scraps as mulch for playgrounds on the basis that the school was religious.
• ACSI was one of 10 “friends of the court” to join an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to take the case of Monifa Sterling to defend her religious liberty rights in light of a lower court decision that misapplies the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
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© 2016 by the Association of Christian Schools International
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