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In reply to the discussion: Georgia passes tax bill punishing Delta for NRA split [View all]onenote
(42,702 posts)In 2010, Congress passed a continuing resolution to fund the government that contained the following provision:
None of the funds made available by this joint resolution or any prior Act may be provided to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now ACORN, or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations. At the time, members of the house were accusing ACORN of voter registration fraud.
In ACORN v.US, the Second Circuit rejected a claim that this constituted a bill of attainder. The court cited the Supreme Court's three part test for a bill of attainder -- (1) specification of the affected persons, (2) punishment, and (3) lack of a judicial trial." The first and third prongs were not contested, but the court concluded that denying a corporate entity a government appropriation was not a "punishment" for purposes of the Bill of Attainder clause.
In the case of Georgia not giving Delta a tax break that wasn't given to anyone else either, two of the prongs fail: lack of specificity and lack of punishment.
But maybe you have more experience with Bill of Attainder cases and can point me to a case that would support the claim that the refusal of Georgia to give any airline in the state a tax break is a bill of attainder.