Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-468_5if6.pdf
Page Number: 23

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

17 

Opinion of the Court 

(CA7 2017); Amanda Acquisition Corp. v. Universal Foods 
Corp., 877 F. 2d 496, 505 (CA7 1989).  So have many schol-
ars.  See, e.g., R. Fallon, The Dynamic Constitution 311 (2d 
ed. 2013) (observing that Pike serves to “ ‘smoke out’ a hid-
den”  protectionism);  B.  Friedman  &  D.  Deacon,  A  Course
Unbroken: The Constitutional Legitimacy of the Dormant 
Commerce Clause, 97 Va. L. Rev. 1877, 1927 (2011); Regan, 
84 Mich. L. Rev., at 1286. 

Nor does any of this help petitioners in this case.  They
not  only  disavow  any  claim  that  Proposition  12  discrimi-
nates on its face.  They nowhere suggest that an examina-
tion of Proposition 12’s practical effects in operation would 
disclose  purposeful  discrimination  against  out-of-state 
businesses.  While this Court has left the “courtroom door 
open”  to  challenges  premised  on  “even  nondiscriminatory 
burdens,” Davis, 553 U. S., at 353, and while “a small num-
ber of our cases have invalidated state laws . . . that appear
to  have  been  genuinely  nondiscriminatory,”  Tracy,  519 
U. S.,  at  298,  n. 12,2  petitioners’  claim  falls  well  outside 
—————— 

2 Most  notably,  Tracy  referred  to,  and  petitioners  briefly  allude  to,  a 
line of cases that originated before Pike in which this Court refused to 
enforce certain state regulations on instrumentalities of interstate trans-
portation—trucks, trains, and the like.  See, e.g., Bibb v. Navajo Freight 
Lines, Inc., 359 U. S. 520, 523–530 (1959) (concerning a state law speci-
fying certain mud flaps for trucks and trailers); Southern Pacific Co. v. 
Arizona  ex  rel.  Sullivan,  325  U. S.  761,  763–782  (1945)  (addressing  a 
state law regarding the length of trains).  Petitioners claim these cases 
support  something  like  the  extraterritoriality  or  balancing  rules  they 
propose.  But at least some decisions in this line might be viewed as con-
demning state laws that “although neutral on their face . . . were enacted 
at the instance of, and primarily benefit,” in-state interests.  Raymond 
Motor Transp., Inc. v. Rice, 434 U. S. 429, 447 (1978); see also B. Fried-
man & D. Deacon, A Course Unbroken: The Constitutional Legitimacy
of the Dormant Commerce Clause, 97 Va. L. Rev. 1877, 1927 (2011).  In 
any event, this Court “has only rarely held that the Commerce Clause 
itself pre-empts an entire field from state regulation, and then only when 
a lack of national uniformity would impede the flow of interstate goods.”