GOP looks to encourage prayer at school board meetings

Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) and 33 other House Republicans are hoping to encourage school boards around the country to pray at their meetings, and are leaning on a 1983 Supreme Court case to argue that voluntary prayer at school boards and other deliberative public bodies "should be protected under law and encouraged in society."

Walberg on Thursday introduced a nonbinding resolution, H.Res. 662, which notes that the Supreme Court in Marsh v. Chambers ruled that the practice of opening sessions of deliberative public bodies with prayer is embedded in U.S. tradition. It states that the court found that "invoking divine guidance on a public body entrusted with making the laws is not a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, but rather is simply a tolerable acknowledgement of beliefs widely held among the people of the Nation."

The resolution then reasons that voluntary prayer should not be limited under this ruling to prayer in the U.S. House and Senate, and finds that school boards are also deliberative public bodies because they are elected by the people and hold sessions in the public to make decisions.

The measure concludes by saying the House recognizes school boards as such, and that they should be "free to engage in prayer at the beginning of meetings consistent with the prayer practice upheld in Marsh v. Chambers." It also "expresses support for the voluntary practice of prayer at the beginning of meetings of legislative bodies and other deliberative public bodies, including school board meetings."

Among others, the resolution is co-sponsored by House Republican Conference Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas).