Religious Freedom Tension Spills Into Circuit Pick Hearing (1)

A pick for the nation’s largest appeals court sparred with Senate Republicans over her decision upholding California Covid-19 restrictions on at-home religious services that were ultimately rejected by a divided U.S. Supreme Court.

Lucy Koh, a district court judge who’s one of four Joe Biden nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, wrote a 2020 decision supporting the limits, which the justices eased in a 5-4 ruling last April. It was the latest in a series of orders by the conservative majority high court freeing worshipers from state and local restrictions designed to stem pandemic ...