Tandon v. Newsom

Tandon v. Newsom, 593 U.S. 61 (2021), was the last major decision of the U.S. Supreme Court addressing religious-liberty challenges to restrictions on public gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic. The decision significantly transformed existing religious-liberty doctrine by adopting the "most favored nation" approach, holding that "government regulations are not neutral and generally applicable, and therefore trigger strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause, whenever they treat any comparable secular activity more favorably than religious exercise."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the government of California limited all gatherings inside homes to three households, regardless of the purpose of meeting. However, there were no household limits on some secular activities outside homes, including personal care providers. Before the pandemic, plaintiffs Jeremy Wong and Karen Busch held Bible studies in their homes, but they were restricted from continuing by California's limit on in-home gatherings. They sued Californian officials, alleging that their First Amendment rights to religious activities were being violated.

Before Tandon, the Supreme Court held in Employment Division v. Smith (1990) that laws which are "neutral" and "generally applicable" need not satisfy strict scrutiny to be constitutional. The Tandon court held that the exemptions for some businesses outside the home made the regulation not neutral and generally applicable. Finding it likely that California's restriction would not withstand strict scrutiny, the Supreme Court issued an injunction prohibiting California from applying the restriction to in-home religious gatherings pending appeal.

Called the "most important free exercise decision since 1990", the case was seen as a significant narrowing of Smith. Legal scholar Steve Vladeck argued that it was significant the court chose to use the shadow docket to issue this major decision, as opposed to the more time-consuming merits docket.