Key findings:

  • The Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty holds its seventh and final public hearing Sunday, April 13, at the Museum of the Bible; a final report is expected by May 1
  • A federal lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward and Americans United alleges the commission violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act by operating without transparency and without balanced membership
  • The commission's 12 members are almost entirely Christian; no Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, or secular tradition is represented — the lawsuit's plaintiffs include the Interfaith Alliance, Sikh American Legal Defense Fund, and Hindus for Human Rights
  • A federal judge has not yet ruled on a motion to block the final report; that ruling could come before or after Sunday's hearing

On Sunday, April 13, the Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty holds its seventh and final public hearing at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. A final report is expected by May 1. The commission's work — a year of hearings on what it calls the "eight critical battlefronts" of American religious freedom — is nearly complete.

Before that report is published, a federal court must decide whether the commission that produced it was operating lawfully.

The Lawsuit

In February 2026, Democracy Forward and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a federal lawsuit in the Southern District of New York alleging that the commission has violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act — the 1972 law that governs how the executive branch creates and operates advisory bodies that make recommendations to the President. The plaintiffs include the Interfaith Alliance, the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Hindus for Human Rights.

FACA exists for a straightforward reason: when the government creates an advisory body to influence federal policy, the public has a legal right to know who is advising the government, what they are saying, and whether the body's membership reflects a balanced range of perspectives rather than a predetermined outcome.

The lawsuit alleges the Religious Liberty Commission has failed on both counts.

On transparency: the plaintiffs allege that hearing transcripts, witness statements, and supporting materials have not been released in a timely manner, denying the public meaningful access to the proceedings as required by statute.

On balance: the commission's twelve members consist entirely of Christians — evangelical pastors including the Rev. Franklin Graham and Paula White-Cain, Catholic clergy including Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Robert Barron, conservative legal scholars, public officials including commission chair Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas and vice chair Dr. Ben Carson — plus one Orthodox rabbi, Dr. Meir Soloveichik of Congregation Shearith Israel. No commissioner represents the Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, or secular American traditions. FACA requires that federal advisory committees be "fairly balanced in terms of the points of view represented."

A coalition of diverse faith leaders including Unitarian Universalists, mainline Protestants, and non-Christian religious communities filed a separate motion to block the commission's final report, arguing that a body with this composition cannot lawfully claim to represent the state of religious liberty for all Americans.

What the Commission Did

The commission was established by executive order on May 1, 2025, charged with assessing the current state of religious freedom in the United States and offering recommendations to preserve and strengthen it. It has convened seven hearings covering topics including anti-Semitism and religious liberty in the private sector, religious liberty in healthcare, parental rights in religious education, and school choice policies that allow families to direct public and federal funds to faith-based schools.

Five of the seven hearings — including Sunday's final session — were held at the Museum of the Bible, an institution with an explicitly Christian identity and a stated mission to "engage people with the Bible." Commission proceedings have opened with Christian prayer.

The commission's focus areas are substantive and the policy stakes are real. Recommendations on school choice funding, for example, could affect every religious school in the country — not only the traditions represented on the commission. The Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Carson v. Makin established that states cannot exclude religious schools from government aid programs available to secular private schools. The commission's recommendations on how far that principle extends will carry significant weight with agencies and legislatures.

What the Law Requires

The Federal Advisory Committee Act was designed precisely to prevent advisory bodies from being captured by a single interest or point of view. The requirement for balanced membership is not aspirational — it is a legal condition for the committee's recommendations to carry official standing.

Jonathan Turley, the George Washington University constitutional law scholar, has written generally that FACA's balance requirement exists because "advisory committees often provide the policy analysis and recommendations that become the basis for executive action." When a committee lacks balance, its recommendations reflect the starting assumptions of its members rather than a genuine assessment of the landscape.

The commission's defenders argue that the twelve commissioners were selected based on expertise and that their published credentials in religious liberty law and theology are relevant to the commission's mandate. Dan Patrick, who chairs the body, has said the commission represents "some of the country's most respected religious leaders" — a characterization that the coalition of excluded traditions disputes.

The federal judge overseeing the FACA lawsuit has not yet ruled on the motion to block the final report. That ruling could come before or after Sunday's hearing.

The Accountability Question

None of this is an argument against studying religious liberty in America. Religious freedom faces genuine threats — from churches that have been excluded from sensitive locations policies, from healthcare mandates that conflict with conscience rights, from licensing requirements that burden faith-based adoption agencies and schools. These are legitimate concerns that deserve rigorous policy analysis.

The argument is procedural: if the executive branch is going to charter an advisory body under federal law to shape that analysis, the law requires transparency and balance. A commission that meets primarily at one religious institution, that has never publicly released complete transcripts on the timeline the law demands, and whose membership excludes the Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, and secular traditions it will write recommendations about — regardless of the quality of its individual members — has a legal compliance problem that the courts are now examining.

The final report arrives in approximately three weeks. Whether it carries legal standing may depend on what a federal judge decides before then.

Sunday's hearing begins at 9:00 a.m. ET and will be broadcast live at justice.gov/live.