The court waded in, alas. And the majority opinion, by Chief Justice John Roberts, and the dissent, by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, got the issue wrong.
In Trinity Lutheran, a church challenged the state of Missouri’s refusal to fund safety improvements at its daycare playground. In April 2017, however, the newly elected governor of Missouri ordered the state to grant the funding and not to enforce its no-churches funding rule. The church won what it wanted because the state decided to give it—this being, for any judges unclear on the concept, what is wistfully called “the political process” courts are supposed to support, not supplant.
Even after the fight ended, however, the Supreme Court insisted on deciding the no-longer-existent dispute. The resulting opinions illustrate the old adage that “if you don’t know where you’re going, when you get there, you’ll be lost.”
