An Agent and Two Principals

Principal-agent theory recently has been used to analyze responses of the U.S. Court of Appeals to search and seizure decisions of the Supreme Court. This article examines what happens when agents (the U.S. Court of Appeals) are faced with the dilemma of following the conflicting commands of two principals (the Supreme Court and Congress). These conflicting commands take the form of the Court's decision in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources v. Smith (1990) and the congressional attempt to overturn this decision in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993. The results of the multivariate analysis demonstrate that even after controlling on legal (case-fact) and political variables, the U.S. Court of Appeals became more hostile to religious free exercise claims after Smith and became more receptive to such claims after the passage of RFRA. The lower courts appear willing to act as the agents of both the Supreme Court and Congress.