Religious Liberty Commission established by EO 14291

On 1 May 2025 President Donald J. Trump signed Executive Order 14291, “Establishment of the Religious Liberty Commission,” during a National Day of Prayer ceremony in the White House Rose Garden.¹² Section 2 establishes the Commission as an advisory body to the White House Faith Office and the Domestic Policy Council, with up to 14 appointed members plus a Chair and Vice Chair, and the Attorney General, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy serving ex officio; the Department of Justice provides funding and administrative and technical support, and the Attorney General performs the Federal Advisory Committee Act functions other than those in 5 U.S.C. §§ 1005 and 1013.¹³ The same day, the President named Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick as Chair and former HUD Secretary Ben Carson as Vice Chair.⁴ The order sits in the lineage of Executive Order 13798 of 4 May 2017 (“Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty”), Executive Order 13831 of 3 May 2018 (“Establishment of a White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative”) and the 7 February 2025 executive order re-establishing the White House Faith Office.⁵⁶

1. The Commission’s mandate is to “advise the White House Faith Office and the Domestic Policy Council” and produce a “comprehensive report” to the President on the foundations of religious liberty in the United States.¹ Its findings carry advisory weight; operative changes to federal programmes flow from subsequent rulemaking, statutory action or further executive orders.

2. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000bb-1, is government-wide and is not administered by any single agency; the Supreme Court in Employment Division v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), held that neutral, generally-applicable laws do not violate the Free Exercise Clause, prompting RFRA’s 1993 statutory restoration of strict scrutiny.⁷⁸ In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. 507 (2022), the Court overruled Lemon v. Kurtzman in favour of “historical practices and understandings” analysis under the Establishment Clause.⁹

3. The Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights enforces federal health-care conscience statutes (the Church, Coats-Snowe and Weldon Amendments) and the implementing regulations at 45 C.F.R. Part 88; Commission recommendations that touch those statutes feed into HHS rulemaking under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 553.¹⁰¹¹