Chapter § 2.3

• Jurisdiction: Oregon

§ 2.3 ARTICLE I, SECTION 4: NO RELIGIOUS TEST FOR OFFICE

Article I, section 4, of the Oregon Constitution provides that "[n]o religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office of trust or profit."

The federal analog to this section is found not in the First Amendment, but in Article VI, clause 3, of the United States Constitution ("no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States").

No Oregon case has ever raised the question of religious qualification for office. However, the United States Supreme Court has held that a Tennessee statute that barred members of the clergy from serving as delegates to the state's constitutional convention violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. McDaniel v. Paty, 435 US 618, 629, 98 S Ct 1322, 55 L Ed 2d 593 (1978). According to the court in that case, 13 states at one time or another had laws...