When Arizona State Senator Janae Shamp pushed SB 1018 through the state Senate in March, the bill's language was specific: it explicitly adds "Sharia law" to the definition of prohibited foreign law in Arizona courts. Missouri's SB 977, the "No Foreign Laws Act," passed the Senate unanimously. Georgia's SB 486 cleared committee in February. Florida's recently signed HB 1471 reinforces the state's existing ban. At the federal level, the "No Shari'a Act" (H.R. 5512) was introduced in the 119th Congress.
Supporters describe these measures as common-sense protections for American legal sovereignty. But constitutional scholars, religious liberty advocates, and practicing attorneys across the political spectrum are raising an uncomfortable question: do lawmakers understand what they're actually banning?
The Problem with Broad Language
American law has recognized private religious arbitration for over a century. The Federal Arbitration Act of 1925 established the legal 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 because the Beth Din has carefully structured its proceedings to meet secular arbitration standards. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) 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 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 a state prohibits courts from recognizing or enforcing any legal framework derived from a foreign or religious source that "conflicts with" state or federal 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.
What Legal Scholars Are Saying
The constitutional problem is not theoretical. In 2013, a federal court struck down Oklahoma's "Save Our State" amendment — which prohibited courts from considering Sharia law — on the grounds that it singled out one religious tradition for disfavorable treatment in violation of the Establishment Clause. The Tenth Circuit upheld that ruling unanimously.
But 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.
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 in America 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.
Follow the Money
The legislative language in these bills didn't originate in state capitols. 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 foreign law ban template has been introduced in more than 40 state legislatures over the past decade, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, in language similar enough to trace to a small number of originating organizations. The question for voters in Arizona, Missouri, Georgia, and every other state considering these measures is straightforward: who wrote this bill, and did they consider what it does to your community's religious practices?
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 problem. International business contracts governed by the law of a foreign jurisdiction — a routine feature of global commerce — could become unenforceable in states that pass broad foreign law bans.
The 1925 Federal Arbitration Act likely preempts the most aggressive state-level provisions. But preemption is cold comfort when the litigation required to establish it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and takes years to resolve. The chilling effect is immediate: religious communities that depend on arbitration for internal dispute resolution will face legal uncertainty that discourages participation.
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.