Nine states have now enacted laws banning the application of "foreign law" in their courts. Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas all have statutes on the books. Missouri's "No Foreign Laws Act" (SB 977) passed the state Senate unanimously this session. Georgia's SB 486 cleared committee in February. At the federal level, the "No Shari'a Act" (H.R. 5512) was introduced in the 119th Congress. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed HB 1471 into law in early 2026, reinforcing and expanding the state's existing ban.
The bills sailed through with minimal floor debate and near-unanimous Republican support. Supporters describe them as common-sense protections for American legal sovereignty. But constitutional scholars, practicing attorneys, and religious liberty advocates across the political spectrum are raising a question that apparently never came up during committee hearings: do the lawmakers who voted for these bills understand what they actually banned?
A Century of Religious Self-Governance — Under Threat
American law has recognized private religious arbitration for over a century. The Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 established the framework under which citizens of every faith can resolve disputes — divorces, business disagreements, inheritance conflicts — through religious tribunals, provided both parties consent and the process doesn't violate constitutional rights.
The Beth Din of America, the most prominent Jewish rabbinical court in the country, operates under this framework. It arbitrates commercial disputes, family conflicts, and divorce proceedings according to Jewish law. Its decisions are legally binding and enforceable in secular courts. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, roughly 200 Catholic diocesan tribunals process an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 marriage annulments annually under canon law — proceedings that secular courts recognize and uphold. Protestant Christian conciliation services, including Peacemaker Ministries and similar organizations, resolve thousands of disputes among congregants using biblical principles as their governing framework.
All of these systems depend on the same legal architecture: the recognition that religious communities can govern their internal civil affairs according to their own traditions, so long as participation is voluntary and outcomes don't violate public policy.
The new wave of foreign law bans targets that architecture. When Arizona's SB 1018 — which passed the state Senate 17-12 in March — prohibits courts from recognizing legal frameworks derived from a foreign or religious source that "conflicts with" state law, it potentially invalidates the enforcement mechanism for every religious arbitration system in the state. Not just the one named in the bill's press release.
The Constitutional Problem
This isn't theoretical. In 2013, a federal court struck down Oklahoma's "Save Our State" amendment — which prohibited courts from considering one specific religious legal tradition — on Establishment Clause grounds. The Tenth Circuit upheld that ruling unanimously in Awad v. Ziriax.
The newer bills have learned from Oklahoma's mistake by using broader language. Missouri's SB 977 prohibits the application of "any foreign legal code" that conflicts with state law. On its face, that language captures Jewish halakha, Catholic canon law, Hindu dharmashastra, and any other religious legal tradition that doesn't precisely mirror Missouri's domestic code — which is to say, all of them.
Arizona's approach is even more revealing. SB 1018 explicitly names one tradition in the statute while expanding the definition to include "any legal system outside U.S. federal or Arizona law." State Senator Mitzi Epstein argued on the floor that the bill singles out one religious community for disfavorable treatment — the exact constitutional defect that sank Oklahoma's amendment. The bill passed anyway.
Professor Michael Helfand of Pepperdine University, one of the nation's leading scholars on religious arbitration, has written extensively about this tension. His research demonstrates that religious arbitration has functioned for decades precisely because courts treat it as private contract law, not as the imposition of a foreign legal system. The new state bans collapse that distinction.
Eugene Volokh, the UCLA law professor and prominent conservative legal scholar, has argued that laws targeting specific religious legal traditions face obvious First Amendment problems — and that broadly written alternatives create a different set of problems by sweeping in arbitration practices that Americans of every faith rely on.
Who Wrote the Bills
The legislative language in these bills didn't originate in state capitols. The Brennan Center for Justice has documented that the foreign law ban template has been introduced in more than 40 state legislatures over the past decade, in language similar enough to trace to a small number of originating organizations.
The Center for Public Integrity has documented that model legislation — template bills written by Washington advocacy organizations and distributed to state lawmakers for introduction — accounts for a significant share of state legislative output. Lawmakers receive fully formed bills, insert state-specific terms, and introduce them under their own names. The practice doesn't require registering as a lobbyist, doesn't appear on campaign finance reports, and doesn't require disclosure of who wrote the bill or who funded the drafting.
The question for voters in nine states — and the dozens of others where these bills are pending — is straightforward: who wrote this bill, and did they consider what it does to your church's tribunal, your synagogue's rabbinical court, or your community's faith-based dispute resolution?
The Real Stakes
A Jewish couple in Missouri who resolves their divorce through a Beth Din proceeding may find that the resulting agreement is unenforceable under SB 977 — because the arbitration was conducted under Jewish law, which is, by definition, a "foreign legal code." A Catholic annulment processed through a diocesan tribunal could face the same challenge. Protestant conciliation agreements governed by biblical principles fall into the same category. International business contracts governed by the law of a foreign jurisdiction — a routine feature of global commerce — could become unenforceable in every state that passes a broad foreign law ban.
The American Bar Association formally opposes state or federal laws that "impose blanket prohibitions" on consideration of an entire body of religious or foreign law, on the grounds that such laws undermine arbitration, contract enforcement, and religious freedom simultaneously.
The 1925 Federal Arbitration Act likely preempts the most aggressive state-level provisions. But preemption litigation costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and takes years. The chilling effect is immediate: religious communities that depend on arbitration for internal dispute resolution face legal uncertainty that discourages participation right now.
Who Benefits, Who Pays
The advocacy organizations that wrote the model legislation get a policy victory and a fundraising hook. Lawmakers who introduce the bills get a press release. Neither group bears the cost of the religious liberty implications.
The people who pay: Jewish communities that rely on Beth Din arbitration. Catholic dioceses that process annulments. Every faith community that uses religious dispute resolution. International businesses with contracts governed by foreign law. And taxpayers, who fund the inevitable federal litigation when these statutes are challenged on First Amendment grounds.
The First Amendment protects all religious practice equally — or it protects none of it. That principle doesn't change based on which tradition is named in the bill's title. And it doesn't change based on how fast the bill moved through committee.
The Establishment Clause exists to prevent government from picking winners among religions. If your state just passed a "foreign law" ban, ask your representative one question: did they read the bill, or did someone else write it for them?