Marsh, thus precludes this Court from adjudicating plaintiffs claim. Those decisions mandate that plaintiff's Establishment Clause challenge be dismissed.
Finally, although entirely unnecessary to the disposition of plaintiffs Establishment Clause claim, there is no basis for the complaint's allegation that "the holding in Marsh" is "inconsistent" or in "direct[] conflict" with statements of law appearing in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe; Board of Education of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet, Lee v. Weisman; and Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh. Compl.^16,18. All of the quoted "statements" from opinions in these cases, see note 5 supra, are general propositions of law that do not even reference the decision in Marsh.
Moreover, where those opinions do reference Marsh — in "statements" not identified in the complaint — they make clear that the Supreme Court understands Marsh to be good law. The Court in Lee, for example, accepted the constitutionality of legislative chaplaincies as a given and found "obvious" and "inherent" differences between them and the coercive school prayer in that case. Lee, 505 U.S. at 596-97. Likewise, upon recognition of the "delicate and fact-sensitive" nature of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, id. at 597, the Court in Allegheny devoted four pages of the United States Reports to its explanation of the constitutional difference between the impermissible religious display in that case and the "unique history" of legislative chaplaincies in Marsh. See 492 U.S. at 602-06. There is, therefore, no foundation for any contention that Marsh has been undermined by more recent authority.
In sum, the principles of stare decisis mandate dismissal of plaintiff s Establishment Clause claim for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. That claim is totally "foreclosed by prior decisions," Steel Co., 523 U.S. at 89, of the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit en bane, and there is no basis for plaintiff's allegation that the constitutionality of the congressional -15-