Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2023
This bill generally prohibits the federal government, states, tribal nations, or localities from discriminating or taking adverse action against a child welfare provider that declines to provide services due to the provider's sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions. However, government entities may still take adverse action against a provider that declines to provide adoption or foster care services based on race, color, or national origin.
The Department of Health and Human Services must withhold a portion of federal funding for family services and child welfare activities from a government entity that discriminates against a child welfare provider in violation of this bill. Child welfare providers may also sue the government entity for such discrimination. A prevailing provider may recover reasonable attorney's fees and costs.
Furthermore, government entities that accept certain federal funding for family services and child welfare activities must waive sovereign immunity as a defense to lawsuits brought under this bill. (In many cases, sovereign immunity shields states, territories, tribal nations, and some localities against private suits.)
[Congressional Bills 118th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 3344 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
<DOC>
118th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 3344
To ensure that organizations with religious or moral convictions are
allowed to continue to provide services for children.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
November 27, 2023
Mr. Scott of South Carolina (for himself, Mr. Risch, Mr. Cotton, Mr.
Marshall, Mr. Lankford, Mrs. Hyde-Smith, Mr. Cramer, Mr. Braun, Mr.
Hawley, Ms. Ernst, Mr. Rubio, Mrs. Blackburn, Mr. Wicker, Mr. Hagerty,
Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Ricketts, and Mr. Barrasso) introduced the following
bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To ensure that organizations with religious or moral convictions are
allowed to continue to provide services for children.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act
of 2023''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
(a) Findings.--Congress finds the following:
(1) Child welfare service providers, both individuals and
organizations, have the inherent, fundamental, and inalienable
right to free exercise of religion protected by the United
States Constitution.
(2) The right to free exercise of religion for child
welfare service providers includes the freedom to refrain from
conduct that conflicts with their sincerely held religious
beliefs.
(3) Most States provide government-funded child welfare
services through various charitable, religious, and private
organizations.
(4) Religious organizations, in particular, have a lengthy
and distinguished history of providing child welfare services
that predates government involvement.
(5) Religious organizations have long been and should
continue contracting with and receiving grants from
governmental entities to provide child welfare services.
(6) Religious organizations cannot provide certain child
welfare services, such as foster-care or adoption placements,
without receiving a government contract, grant or license.
(7) Religious organizations display particular excellence
when providing child welfare services.
(8) Children and families benefit greatly from the child
welfare services provided by religious organizations.
(9) Governmental entities and officials administering
federally funded child welfare services in some States,
including Massachusetts, California, Illinois, and the District
of Columbia, have refused to contract with religious
organizations that are unable, due to sincerely held religious
beliefs or moral convictions, to provide a child welfare
service that conflicts, or under circumstances that conflict,
with those beliefs or convictions; and that refusal has forced
many religious organizations to end their long and
distinguished history of excellence in the provision of child
welfare services.
(10) Ensuring that religious organizations can continue to
provide child welfare services will benefit the children and
families that receive those federally funded services.
(11) States also provide government-funded child welfare
services through individual child welfare service providers
with varying religious and moral convictions.
(12) Many individual child welfare service providers
maintain sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions
that relate to their work and should not be forced to choose
between their livelihood and adherence to those beliefs or
convictions.
(13) Because governmental entities provide child welfare
services through many charitable, religious, and private
organizations, each with varying religious beliefs or moral
convictions, and through diverse individuals with varying
religious beliefs or moral convictions, the religiously
impelled inability of some religious organizations or
individuals to provide certain services will not have a
material effect on a person's ability to access federally
funded child welfare services.
(14) The provisions of this Act are remedial measures that
are congruent and proportional to protecting the constitutional
rights of child welfare service providers guaranteed under the
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
(15) Congress has the authority to pass this Act pursuant
to its spending clause power and enforcement power under
section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States
Constitution.
(b) Purposes.--The purposes of this Act are as follows:
(1) To prohibit governmental entities from discriminating
or taking an adverse action against a child welfare service
provider on the basis that the provider declines to provide a
child welfare service that conflicts, or under circumstances
that conflict, with the sincerely held religious beliefs or
moral convictions of the provider.
(2) To protect child welfare service providers' exercise of
religion and to ensure that governmental entities will not be
able to force those providers, either directly or indirectly,
to discontinue all or some of their child welfare services
because they decline to provide a child welfare service that
conflicts, or under circumstances that conflict, with their
sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.
(3) To provide relief to child welfare service providers
whose rights have been violated.
SEC. 3. DISCRIMINATION AND ADVERSE ACTIONS PROHIBITED.
(a) In General.--The Federal Government, and any State that
receives Federal funding for any program that provides child welfare
services under part B or E of title IV of the Social Security Act (42
U.S.C. 621 et seq., 671 et seq.) (and any subdivision, office or
department of such State) shall not discriminate or take an adverse
action against a child welfare service provider on the basis that the
provider has declined or will decline to provide, facilitate, or refer
for a child welfare service that conflicts with, or under circumstances
that conflict with, the provider's sincerely held religious beliefs or
moral convictions.
(b) Limitation.--Subsection (a) does not apply to conduct forbidden
by paragraph (18) of section 471(a) of such Act (42 U.S.C. 671(a)(18)).
SEC. 4. FUNDS WITHHELD FOR VIOLATION.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall withhold from a
State 15 percent of the Federal funds the State receives for a program
that provides child welfare services under part B or E of title IV of
the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 621 et seq., 671 et seq.) if the
State violates section 3 when administering or disbursing funds under
such program.
SEC. 5. PRIVATE RIGHT OF ACTION.
(a) In General.--A child welfare service provider aggrieved by a
violation of section 3 may assert that violation as a claim or defense
in a judicial proceeding and obtain all appropriate relief, including
declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and compensatory damages, with
respect to that violation.
(b) Attorneys' Fees and Costs.--A child welfare service provider
that prevails in an action by establishing a violation of section 3 is
entitled to recover reasonable attorneys' fees and costs.
(c) Waiver of Sovereign Immunity.--By accepting or expending
Federal funds in connection with a program that provides child welfare
services under part B or E of title IV of the Social Security Act (42
U.S.C. 621 et seq., 671 et seq.), a State waives its sovereign immunity
for any claim or defense that is raised under this section.
SEC. 6. SEVERABILITY.
If any provision of this Act, or any application of such provision
to any person or circumstance, is held to be unconstitutional, the
remainder of this Act and the application of the provision to any other
person or circumstance shall not be affected.
SEC. 7. EFFECTIVE DATE.
(a) In General.--Except as provided in subsection (b), the
amendments made by this Act shall take effect on the 1st day of the 1st
fiscal year beginning on or after the date of the enactment of this
Act, and the withholding of funds authorized by section 4 shall apply
to payments under parts B and E of title IV of the Social Security Act
(42 U.S.C. 621 et seq., 671 et seq.) for calendar quarters beginning on
or after such date.
(b) Exception.--If legislation (other than legislation
appropriating funds) is required for a governmental entity to bring
itself into compliance with this Act, the governmental entity shall not
be regarded as violating this Act before the 1st day of the 1st
calendar quarter beginning after the 1st regular session of the
legislative body that begins after the date of the enactment of this
Act. For purposes of the preceding sentence, if the governmental entity
has a 2-year legislative session, each year of the session is deemed to
be a separate regular session.
SEC. 8. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) Child welfare service provider.--The term ``child
welfare service provider'' includes organizations,
corporations, groups, entities, or individuals that provide or
seek to provide, or that apply for or receive a contract,
subcontract, grant, or subgrant for the provision of, child
welfare services. A provider need not be engaged exclusively in
child welfare services to be considered a child welfare service
provider for purposes of this Act.
(2) Child welfare services.--The term ``child welfare
services'' means social services provided to or on behalf of
children, including assisting abused, neglected, or troubled
children, counseling children or parents, promoting foster
parenting, providing foster homes or temporary group shelters
for children, recruiting foster parents, placing children in
foster homes, licensing foster homes, promoting adoption,
recruiting adoptive parents, assisting adoptions, supporting
adoptive families, assisting kinship guardianships, assisting
kinship caregivers, providing family preservation services,
providing family support services, and providing time-limited
family reunification services.
(3) State.--The term ``State'' means each of the 50 States,
the District of Columbia, any commonwealth, territory or
possession of the United States, and any political subdivision
thereof, and any Indian tribe, tribal organization, or tribal
consortium that has a plan approved in accordance with section
479B of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 679c) or that has a
cooperative agreement or contract with one of the 50 States for
the administration or payment of funds under part B or E of
title IV of the Social Security Act.
(4) Funding; funded; funds.--The terms ``funding'',
``funded'', or ``funds'' include money paid pursuant to a
contract, grant, voucher, or similar means.
(5) Adverse action.--The term ``adverse action'' includes,
but is not limited to, denying a child welfare service
provider's application for funding, refusing to renew the
provider's funding, canceling the provider's funding, declining
to enter into a contract with the provider, refusing to renew a
contract with the provider, canceling a contract with the
provider, declining to issue a license to the provider,
refusing to renew the provider's license, canceling the
provider's license, terminating the provider's employment, or
any other adverse action that materially alters the terms or
conditions of the provider's employment, funding, contract, or
license.
<all>
Introduced in Senate
Read twice and referred to the Committee on Finance.
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