Landor v. Louisiana Dept of Corrections and Public Safety · ¶42

Much as the other arguments we have encountered misconceive the Spending Clause, this one misunderstands the Necessary and Proper Clause. The latter provision authorizes Congress to employ “necessary and proper” means for “carrying into Execution” its other enumerated powers. Art. I, §8, cl. 18. Put another way, the Clause allows Congress to enact laws “incidental to those powers which are expressly given.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 411 (1819). So the question is not, as Mr. Landor and the dissent would have it, whether a personal-capacity cause of action is incidental to RLUIPA’s policy protecting religious exercises. The question, instead, is whether their proposed cause of action is a necessary and proper incident to Congress’s constitutionally enumerated power to spend money.

slip opinion, revised 6/28/26
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