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Page Number: 31

8 

NORTH CAROLINA STATE BD. OF DENTAL
EXAMINERS v. FTC 
ALITO, J., dissenting 

safety.
  Nothing in Parker supports the type of inquiry that the
Court now prescribes.  The Court crafts a test under which 
state agencies that are “controlled by active market partic-
ipants,” ante, at 12, must demonstrate active state super-
vision  in  order  to  be  immune  from  federal  antitrust  law. 
The  Court  thus  treats  these  state  agencies  like  private
entities.  But  in  Parker,  the  Court  did  not  examine  the 
structure of the California program to determine if it had 
been captured by private interests.  If the Court had done 
so,  the  case  would  certainly  have  come  out  differently,
because California conditioned its regulatory measures on
the  participation  and  approval  of  market  actors  in  the
relevant industry.

Establishing  a  prorate  marketing  plan  under  Califor-
nia’s law first required the petition of at least 10 producers 
of the particular commodity.  Parker, 317 U. S., at 346. If 
the  Commission  then  agreed  that  a  marketing  plan  was 
warranted,  the  Commission  would  “select  a  program 
committee  from  among  nominees  chosen  by  the  qualified 
Ibid.  (emphasis  added).  That  committee 
producers.” 
would  then  formulate  the  proration  marketing  program, 
which the Commission could modify or approve.  But even 
after Commission approval, the program became law (and
then,  automatically)  only  if  it  gained  the  approval  of  65 
percent of the relevant producers, representing at least 51
percent  of  the  acreage  of  the  regulated  crop.  Id.,  at  347. 
This  scheme  gave  decisive  power  to  market  participants. 
But  despite  these  aspects  of  the  California  program,  Par-
ker held that California was acting as a “sovereign” when
it  “adopt[ed]  and  enforc[ed]  the  prorate  program.”  Id.,  at 
352.  This  reasoning  is  irreconcilable  with  the  Court’s
today. 

III 
The Court goes astray because it forgets the origin of the