State selects right-wing Texas lawyers to help argue landmark school case
“As the nation’s largest non-profit legal firm solely dedicated to religious liberty, our legal services are always provided at no charge to you,” the Texas-based First Liberty Institute says.
The Dunleavy administration has chosen three lawyers of the First Liberty Institute to help defend the practice of using state funds for private schools, contrary to the language of the Alaska Constitution.
The Alaska Constitution says, “No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or private educational institution.”
The state has also added Virginia lawyer Elbert Lin to the roster, which includes only one state attorney, Margaret Paton-Walsh.
The Alaska Supreme Court is set to hear an appeal of the landmark ruling this month.
“First Liberty is the tip of the spear in defending religious liberty in America,” says President Kelly Shackelford.
While the tip of the spear says its legal services are free for individuals, it doesn’t say anything about state governments.
I have asked the Department of Law for a copy of whatever contract it has signed with First Liberty and with the firm that employs Lin.
According to court records, the Texas attorneys temporarily added to the attorney general’s case are Justin Butterfield, Lea Patterson and Hiram Sasser.
Sasser is the executive general counsel of the Texas organization, while Butterfield is deputy general counsel and Patterson is senior counsel.
The Texas lawyers will want to make this about freedom of religion above all else.
In its annual report, the group quotes Sasser as saying, “Every oppressive government wants to squash this fundamental right. That’s why protecting religious liberty is the most important thing we can do. We’re not just defending religious liberty, but expanding it to fulfill the vision of this nation’s founders.”
Butterfield, like Sasser, is a member of the Federalist Society.
In a panel discussion in 2022, Butterfield said that more and more Americans no longer understand the “religious mentality.” He mentioned one case in which two clients were treated differently by a company because one person repented and one did not.
Patterson “spent years defending the Arkansas capitol’s Ten Commandments monument,” the annual report says, adding that she became a lawyer because “she felt God calling her to use her talents to protect the spread of the Gospel.”
This is the state’s opening filing on the appeal, filed by five lawyers, four of them from Outside.
This is the opening brief from the group that intervened for private school parents, seeking to continue having state funds pay for private school tuition.
The lawyers are Dunleavy statehood defense coordinator Craig Richards and two lawyers from the right-wing Institute for Justice, which takes positions similar to those of the First Liberty Institute.
The group that won the case, represented by Scott Kendall and Lauren Sherman of Cashion Gilmore & Lindemuth in Anchorage, has yet to file its opening brief, which is due June 10.
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