Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/429/452/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 15:54:29+00:00

Document:
Pursuant to California statutes authorizing counties to impose an annual use or property tax on possessory interests in improvements on tax-exempt land, appellee counties imposed a tax on the possessory interests of appellant United States Forest Service employees in housing located in national forests within the counties and owned and supplied to appellants by the Forest Service as part of their compensation.
Held: The tax is not barred by the Supremacy Clause as a state tax on the Federal Government or federal property. Pp. 429 U. S. 457-468.
(a) A State may, in effect, raise revenues on the basis of property owned by the United States as long as that property is being used by a private citizen and as long as it is the possession or use by the private citizen that is being taxed. City of Detroit v. Murray Corp., 355 U. S. 489; United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U. S. 466; United States v. Township of Muskegon, 355 U. S. 484. P. 429 U. S. 462.
(b) The economic burden on a federal function of a state tax imposed on those who deal with the Federal Government does not render the tax unconstitutional as long as the tax is imposed equally on the other similarly situated constituents of the State. Pp. 429 U. S. 462-464.
(c) The "legal incidence" of the tax in question falls neither on the Federal Government nor on federal property, but is imposed solely on private citizens who work for the Federal Government and threatens to interfere with federal laws relating to the Forest Service's functions only insofar as it may impose an economic burden on the Forest Service to reimburse its employees for the taxes owed or, failing reimbursement, to remove an advantage otherwise enjoyed by the Government in the employment market. P. 429 U. S. 464.
for private employers and rent houses in the private sector. Pp. 429 U. S. 464-465.
(e) It cannot be properly contended that appellants are required to occupy their houses for the Forest Service's sole benefit, and not for their own personal benefit, since the occupancy of the houses constitutes part of appellants' "compensation" for services performed, and thus concededly is of personal benefit to the employee, and since, moreover, the Forest Service itself purports to measure the personal benefit of the occupancy to the employee, and collects rent in such an amount through deductions from the employee's paycheck. Pp. 429 U. S. 465-467.
50 Cal.App.3d 633, 123 Cal.Rptr. 548 (County of Fresno judgment) and County of Tuolumne judgment affirmed.
WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and BRENNAN, STEWART, MARSHALL, BLACKMUN, POWELL, and REHNQUIST, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 429 U. S. 468.
The issue in this case is whether, consistent with the Federal Government's immunity from state taxation inherent in the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, see M'Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819), the State of California may tax federal employees on their possessory interests in housing owned and supplied to them by the Federal Government as part of their compensation. We hold that it may.
also made for the fact hat the Forest Service reserved the right to remove employees from their houses at any time, to enter the houses with or without notice for inspection purposes, and to use part or all of the houses for official purposes in an emergency.
private citizen's usufructuary interest in the government land and improvements alone that is being taxed. (City of Detroit v. Murray Corp., 355 U. S. 489 . . . ; United States v. Township of Muskegon, 355 U. S. 484 . . . ; United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U. S. 466. . . .)."
Id. at 640, 123 Cal.Rptr. at 552. Consequently, the court held, the tax is not barred by the Supremacy Clause of the Federal Constitution. The California Court of Appeal also rejected appellants' contention that the tax operates to discriminate against the Federal Government and its employees. The Supreme Court of California denied review. We noted probable jurisdiction to review the decision of the California Court of Appeal, 425 U.S. 970 (1976).
Appellants argue that the tax is "a levy upon the activities of the United States" because the occupancy of the houses by the Forest Service employees was "for the sole purpose of discharging their governmental function of running the national forests." Brief for Appellants 11. Consequently, the Government argues, the tax is forbidden by the doctrine announced in M'Culloch v. Maryland, that under the Supremacy Clause of the Federal Constitution the States may not tax the properties, functions, or instrumentalities of the Federal Government. We disagree with the Government, and affirm the judgment below.
be relied on to vote out of office any legislature that imposes an abusively high tax on them. They cannot be relied upon to be similarly motivated when the tax is instead solely on a federal function.
"extend to a tax . . . imposed on the interest which the citizens of Maryland may hold in this institution [the bank], in common with other property of the same description throughout the State."
this Court since M'Culloch have been less uniform on the question whether taxes, the economic but not the legal incidence of which falls in part or in full on the Federal Government, are invalid.
of Erie County, 6 Pet. 435 (1842). [Footnote 9] See also Alabama v. King & Boozer, 314 U. S. 1 (1941), overruling Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U. S. 218 (1928).
Finally, and, for the purposes of this case, dispositively, in City of Detroit v. Murray Corp., 355 U. S. 489 (1958), United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U. S. 466 (198), and United States v. Township of Muskegon, 355 U. S. 484 (1958), this Court sustained state use taxes on the use by private companies of machinery and other property owned by the United States and leased to them for use in their businesses -- even though, in two of these cases, the companies had cost-plus contracts with the Government requiring the Government to reimburse them for state taxes paid by them. These cases make clear that a State may, in effect, raise revenues on the basis of property owned by the United States as long as that property is being used by a private citizen or corporation and so long as it is the possession or use by the private citizen that is being taxed. See also Esso Standard Oil Co. v. Evans, 345 U. S. 495 (1953).
[in a federal instrumentality] in common with other property of the same description throughout the State." 4 Wheat. at 17 U. S. 436.
Although the tax is imposed by the appellee counties on renters of real property only if the owner is exempt from taxation -- and consequently is not imposed on the vast majority of renters of real property in California -- the tax is not for that reason discriminatory. In this respect, this case is governed by United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U. S. 466 (1958). There, the city of Detroit imposed a use tax on those who used tax-exempt property owned by the United States.
"As suggested before the legislature apparently was trying to equate the tax burden imposed on private enterprise using exempt property with that carried by similar businesses using taxed property. Those using exempt property are required to pay no greater tax than that placed on private owners or passed on by them to their business lessees."
Id. at 355 U. S. 473-474. (Emphasis added.) Similarly, here, the State of California imposes a property tax on owners of nonexempt property which is "passed on by them to their . . . lessees." Consequently, the appellants who rent from the Forest Service are no worse off under California tax laws than those who work for private employers and rent houses in the private sector.
"[t]here is accordingly no constitutionally permissible way to isolate any 'personal residence' portion of these possessory interests that could be deemed to be unrelated to the official duties of these Forest Service employees."
"Actual possession and custody of Government property nearly always are in someone who is not himself the Government but acts in its behalf and for its purposes. . . . His personal advantages from the relationship by way of salary, profit or beneficial personal use of the property may be taxed as we have held."
parties who do business with the Government should be given immunity from states taxes."
* Together with United States et al. v. County of Tuolumne also on appeal from the same court (see this Court's Rule 15(3)).
Some of the appellants were not required, but simply permitted, to live in houses owned by the Forest Service, in the sense that these particular appellants might have been able to live in a privately owned house outside the forest if they had so elected. However, the Forest Service required that some employee occupy each house owned by the Forest Service, and if no employee had volunteered, some employee, perhaps including some of these appellants, would have been required to live there. In light of our disposition of this case, the distinction between employees required to live in Forest Service housing and those permitted to live there is unimportant, and we will not refer to it again.
"Paved streets, street lighting at least at intersections, sidewalks, lawns, trees and landscaping, general attractiveness of the neighborhood, community sanitation services, reliability and adequacy of water safe for house hold use, reliability of [sic] adequacy of electrical service, reliability and adequacy of telephone service, reliability and adequacy of fuel for heating, hot water and cooking, police protection, fire protection, unusual design features of a dwelling, absence of disturbing noises or offensive odors and standards of maintenance."
"'Possessory interests' means the following:"
"(a) Possession of, claim to, or right to the possession of land or improvements, except when coupled with ownership of the land or improvements in the same person."
"'Taxable possessory interest' means a possessory interest in nontaxable publicly owned real property, as such property is defined in section 104 of the Revenue and Taxation Code. . . ."
"'Real estate' or 'real property' includes:"
"(a) The possession of, claim to, ownership of, or right to the possession of land."
All parties agree that the national forests owned by the Federal Government are tax-exempt land by reason of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution, e.g., United States v. Allegheny County, 322 U. S. 174 (1944), and that no tax may be imposed either on the land itself or on the United States.
With respect to non-tax-exempt land, California imposes a property tax on the owner. No tax is imposed directly on a renter of non-tax exempt land. However, the tax on the owner is presumably reflected in the rent and the renter may thus pay the tax indirectly.
In computing the value of appellants' possessory interests on which the tax was imposed, Fresno County used the value of one year of occupancy. Tuolumne County used the present discounted value of five years' occupancy -- the length of time which it estimated the average Forest Service employee remained in a Forest Service house.
The tax was in the form of a forced purchase from a state official of stamped paper on which such notes were required to be printed. The tax could be avoided by an annual lump-sum payment to the state official of $15,000.
"[Normally in] imposing a tax the legislature acts upon its constituents. This is in general a sufficient security against erroneous and oppressive taxation."
"The people of a State, therefore, give to their government a right of taxing themselves and their property, . . . resting confidently on the interest of the legislator, and on the influence of the constituents over their representative, to guard them against its abuse."
4 Wheat. at 17 U. S. 428.
". . . When they tax the chartered institutions of the States, they tax their constituents; and these taxes must be uniform. But, when a State taxes the operations of the government of the United States, it acts upon institutions created, not by their own constituents, but by people over whom they claim no control."
"The result is a conviction that the States have no power, by taxation or otherwise, to retard, impede, burden, or in any manner control, the operations of the constitutional laws enacted by Congress to carry into execution the powers vested in the general government. This is, we think, the unavoidable consequence of that supremacy which the constitution has declared."
Id. at 17 U. S. 436.
Thus, the Court invalidated a state law which required a seller of liquor to United States post exchanges to collect a markup -- the practical equivalent of a tax -- from the post exchange and to remit it to the State Tax Commission. United States v. Mississippi Tax Comm'n, 421 U. S. 599 (1975). There, although the tax was nominally collected from the seller, the legal incidence of the tax was said to fall on the United States because state law required it to be charged to and collected from the United States by the seller. See First Agricultural Nat. Bank v. Tax Comm'n, 392 U. S. 339 (1968). Kern-Limerick, Inc. v. Scurlock, 347 U. S. 110 (1954), heavily relied on by appellants, also stands only for the proposition that the State may not impose a tax the legal incidence of which falls on the Federal Government. Id. at 347 U. S. 122. There, the State imposed a sales tax on purchasers. Kern-Limerick, Inc., had a cost-plus contract with the Department of the Navy which provided that all purchases made in furtherance of the contract were made by the Department of the Navy, with Kern-Limerick acting only as its agent. The Court held that the question of who was the purchaser for state tax purposes was a federal question, and it held the Department of the Navy to be the purchaser and the tax to be thus unenforceable. See also Federal Land Bank v. Bismarck Lumber Co., 314 U. S. 95 (1941); Van Brocklin v. Tennessee, 117 U. S. 151 (1886).
E.g., 41 U. S. Commissioners of Erie County, 16 Pet. 435 (1842) (holding unconstitutional a state tax on the income of a federal employee); Panhandle Oil Co. v. Mississippi ex rel. Knox, 277 U. S. 218 (1928) (holding unconstitutional a sales tax imposed on one who made sales to the Federal Government); Gillespie Oklahoma, 257 U. S. 501 (1922) (holding unconstitutional a state income tax as it applied to income generated from property leased from the Federal Government). See also United States v. Rickert, 188 U. S. 432 (1903).
"The theory, which once won a qualified approval, that a tax on income is legally or economically a tax on its source, is no longer tenable."
306 U.S. at 306 U. S. 480.
"[T]he only possible basis for implying a constitutional immunity from state income tax of the salary of an employee of the national government or of a governmental agency is that the economic burden of the tax is in some way passed on so as to impose a burden on the national government tantamount to an interference by one government with the other in the performance of its functions."
"[T]he purpose of the immunity was not to confer benefits on the employees by relieving them from contributing their share of the financial support of the other government, whose benefits they enjoy, or to give an advantage to a government by enabling it to engage employees at salaries lower than those paid for like services by other employers, public or private, but to prevent undue interference with the one government by imposing on it the tax burdens of the other."
"[A] nondiscriminatory tax laid on the income of all members of the community could not be assumed to obstruct the function which [a government entity] had undertaken to perform, or to cast an economic burden upon them, more than does the general taxation of property and income which, to some extent, incapable of measurement by economists, may tend to raise the price level of labor and materials."
Id. at 306 U. S. 483-484.
"So much of the burden of a nondiscriminatory general tax upon the incomes of employees of a government, state or national, as may be passed on economically to that government, through the effect of the tax on the price level of labor or materials, is but the normal incident of the organization within the same territory of two governments, each possessing the taxing power."
Id. at 306 U. S. 487.
"leasehold interest [in the machines] is subject to some qualification of the right to use the property except for gun manufacture . . . and is perhaps burdened by other contractual conditions."
"Mesta has some legal and beneficial interest in this property. It is a bailee for mutual benefit. Whether such a right of possession and use in view of all the circumstances could be taxed by appropriate proceedings we do not decide. . . . [T]he state has made no effort to segregate Mesta's interest [in the machinery] and tax it. The full value of the property including the whole ownership interest, as well as whatever value proper appraisal might attribute to the leasehold, was included in Mesta's assessment."
Insofar as United States v. Allegheny County, supra, holds that a tax measured by the value of Government-owned property may never be imposed on a private party who is using it, that decision has been overruled by United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U. S. 466 (1958), and its companion cases. See id. at 355 U. S. 495 (Frankfurter, J., concurring and dissenting). Insofar as it stands for the proposition that Government property used by a private citizen may not be taxed at its full value where contractual restrictions on its use for the Government's benefit render the property less valuable to the user, the case has no application here. Appellee counties have sought to tax only the individual appellants' interests in the Forest Service houses and have reduced their assessments to take account of the limitations on the use of the houses imposed by the Government.
A tax on the income of federal employees, or a tax on the possessory interest of federal employees in Government houses, if imposed only on them, could be escalated by a State so as to destroy the federal function performed by them either by making the Federal Government unable to hire anyone or by causing the Federal Government to pay prohibitively high salaries. This danger would never arise, however, if the tax is also imposed on the income and property interests of all other residents and voters of the State.
The Federal Government would otherwise have had the power -- enjoyed by no other employer -- of giving its employees housing on which no property tax is paid by them either directly or indirectly as rent paid to a landlord who himself paid a property tax.
The Government has expressly abandoned its claim, made below, that the tax treats federal employees who live in federally owned houses differently from state employees who lived in state-owned houses.
If it were factually accurate that the use of Forest Service housing is of no personal benefit to appellants, the tax would discriminate against those who work for the Federal Government, since California imposes no other tax on its citizens with respect to property in which those citizens have no beneficial personal or business interest. The tax would thus run afoul at least of the Supremacy Clause. M'Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819); United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U.S. at 355 U. S. 473.
An attempt by California to impose a use tax on a Forest Service employee for his fire ax -- which he used only in performing his job -- or on a fire tower inhabited by such employee in the daytime and solely in order to perform his job would present a different question. The employee does not put either the ax or the tower to "beneficial personal use,'" and it is not part of his "`profit'" or his "`salary.'" United States v. City of Detroit, supra at 355 U. S. 471. See n 14, supra.
The application of the California possessory interest tax to federal employees' use of real estate located in a national forest is significantly different from other forms of state taxation and, in my opinion, creates the kind of potential for friction between two sovereigns that the doctrine of constitutional immunity was intended to avoid.
If a State were to tax the income of federal employees without imposing a like tax on others, the tax would be plainly unconstitutional. Cf. 17 U. S. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316. On the other hand, if the State taxes the income of all its residents equally, federal employees must pay the tax. Graves v. New York ex rel. O'Keefe, 306 U. S. 466. This case involves a tax more like the former than the latter, and, in my opinion, is invalid.
on federal employees and no one else. Under the rationale of M'Culloch, the Supremacy Clause protects federal employees, as well as federal instrumentalities, from that kind of potential discrimination.
The California possessory interest tax discriminates against the individual appellants as compared with persons who rent private, nonexempt property. The Federal Government has adopted a policy of charging its employees a rent equal to the fair rental value of their residences as determined by the prevailing rental value of comparable residences in the vicinity of the national forest. [Footnote 2/1] A federal employee residing in a Forest Service residence and a private tenant residing in a comparable home both pay the same rent. But the federal employee also pays a possessory interest tax, while the private tenant does not pay that tax or any other real estate tax.
like these appellants are required to pay a discriminatory tax; Graves v. New York ex rel. O'Keefe, supra, does not control this case.
from its effect on the owners or users of any other tax-exempt property in the State.
Thus, whether the federal tenants are compared with persons occupying property owned by taxpayers or with persons occupying other tax-exempt property, they are vulnerable to a discriminatory tax.
The Michigan tax at issue in the first two cases applied to every private party using any type of exempt property in the State. The tax base included not only property owned by the Federal and State Governments, but also all privately owned exempt real estate. In the first case, the Court expressly relied on the undisputed evidence that lessees of other exempt property were being taxed as foreclosing any claim of discrimination against those using federal property. 355 U.S. at 355 U. S. 474. In the third case, the tax was a general personal property tax which was applied indiscriminately throughout the State, 355 U.S. at 355 U. S. 494.
"It still remains true, as it has from the beginning, that a tax may be invalid even though it does not fall directly on the United States if it operates so as to discriminate against the Government or those with whom it deals. Cf. 17 U. S. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316. But here the tax applies to every private party who uses exempt property in Michigan in connection with a business conducted for private gain. Under Michigan law, this means persons who use property owned by the Federal Government, the State, its political subdivisions, churches, charitable organizations and a great host of other entities. The class defined is not an arbitrary or invidiously discriminatory one. As suggested before, the legislature apparently was trying to equate the tax burden imposed on private enterprise using exempt property with that carried by similar businesses using taxed property. Those using exempt property are required to pay no greater tax than that placed on private owners or passed on by them to their business lessees. In the absence of such equalization, the lessees of tax-exempt property might well be given a distinct economic preference over their neighboring competitors, as well as escaping their fair share of local tax responsibility."
United States v. City of Detroit, supra at 355 U. S. 473-474 (footnote omitted).
California tax to the use of Government property in the performance of a traditional governmental function: managing the national forests. The Government requires the taxpayer forester to occupy the property. The Michigan opinions do not hold or imply that required Government service is comparable to private commercial activity. Indeed, as I read those opinions, they direct us to focus on the question whether there is equality or inequality between users of public and private property. The Michigan tax was valid because there was no discrimination between users; the California tax is invalid because it creates such inequality.
parks are treated like employees of national forests. If this is sufficient to save the tax, I would suppose the State could tax a soldier's use of Army barracks if the State also taxed its police officers whenever they resided in state quarters. Such a tax, I submit, would be patently invalid for reasons which also apply to this case. It would have an impact on federal servants different from its impact on most constituents of the taxing sovereign; and it would create a significant potential conflict between the interests of two sovereigns in the same territory.
"A principle with the uninterrupted historic longevity attributable to the immunity of government property from state taxation has a momentum of authority that reflects, if not a detailed exposition of considerations of policy demanded by our federal system, certainly a deep instinct that there are such considerations, and that the distinction between a tax on government property and a tax on a third person for the privilege of using such property is not an 'empty formalism.' The distinction embodies a considered judgment as to the minimum safeguard necessary for the National Government to carry on its essential functions without hindrance from the exercise of power by another sovereign within the same territory. That in a particular case there may in fact be no conflict in the exercise of the two governmental powers is not to the point. It is in avoiding the potentialities of friction and furthering the smooth operation of complicated governmental machinery that the constitutional doctrine of immunity finds its explanation and justification. "
The specific distinction which Mr. Justice Frankfurter draws in that paragraph appears to support the validity of the California tax on the use by "a third person" of real estate in a national forest. I do not, of course, know whether Mr. Justice Frankfurter would have regarded a Government employee, like the appellants in this case, as the kind of "third person" whose use of federal property in the performance of a traditional governmental function would be taxed. I am convinced, however, that the principle which he articulated supports the immunity claim of these appellants. I therefore respectfully dissent.
The court below endorsed the undisputed finding of the trial court that this policy was in effect at the time this litigation arose, 50 Cal.App.3d 633, 637, 123 Cal.Rptr. 548, 550 (1975).
It is true, as the majority notes, ante at 429 U. S. 466, that appellee counties have sought to tax the individual appellants only on that portion of the total value of the residences which may be properly attributed to their personal, non-job-related possessory interest. This fact affects the amount of the tax, but not its discriminatory character.
Although the Federal Government's complaint alleged that the occupancy of the residences constituted part of appellants' "compensation," the proof established that the Forest Service charged its employees the fair rental value of similar houses in the private sector. The state courts so found, see n. 1, supra.
The fact that the Federal Government receives higher net rents than those received by private landlords is a consequence of its tax-exempt status which avoids one of the burdens of ownership of property regardless of how the Government elects to use its property.
The majority states that the only burden the tax imposes on the Forest Service is economic -- causing it to reimburse its employees for "the taxes legally owed by them" or, failing reimbursement, removing an advantage otherwise enjoyed by the Government in the employment market, ante at 429 U. S. 464. But an attempt to reimburse all federal employees for taxes legally owed would entail a great deal more than the economic burden represented by the value of the taxes. Appellees Fresno and Tuolumne Counties have different methods of computing the value of the possessory interest, ante at 429 U. S. 456 n. 4. Once these counties determine the assessed valuation of the possessory interests, presumably they apply different tax rates to determine the actual dollar value of each appellant's tax. The Forest Service owns residences in many counties throughout the United States. The administrative burden of determining the correct amount of tax owed on each unique residence operating under myriad payment systems and due dates would be immense. In my judgment, this administrative cost provides another reason why this exercise of a State's taxing power runs afoul of the Supremacy Clause. Moreover, I do not believe the State's power can be exercised in a manner which requires the Federal Government to surrender its own tax exemption in order to protect its employees from a discriminatory tax. I do not understand the relevance of the Federal Government's so-called advantage in the employment market.
Title 18 Cal.Adm.Code § 21(b) (1971), quoted ante at 429 U. S. 455 n. 3.
See Cedars of Lebanon Hospital v. County of Los Angeles, 35 Cal.2d 729, 221 P.2d 31 (1950) (private hospital); Church Divinity School v. County of Alameda, 152 Cal.App.2d 496, 314 P.2d 209 (1957) (college-level private school); Serra Retreat v. County of Los Angeles, 35 Cal.2d 755, 221 P.2d 59 (1950), and Saint Germain Foundation v. County of Siskiyou, 212 Cal.App.2d 911, 28 Cal.Rptr. 393 (1963) (religious organizations).
"The United States asks this Court to strike down as unconstitutional a tax statute of the State of Michigan as applied to a lessee of government property. In general terms, this statute, Public Act 189 of 1953, provides that, when tax-exempt real property is used by a private party in a business conducted for profit, the private party is subject to taxation to the same extent as though he owned the property."
United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U.S. at 355 U. S. 467.
"The vital thing under the Michigan statute, and we think permissibly so, is that Continental was using the property in connection with its own commercial activities. The case might well be different if the Government had reserved such control over the activities and financial gain of Continental that it could properly be called a 'servant' of the United States in agency terms. But here Continental was not so assimilated by the Government as to become one of its constituent parts. It was free within broad limits to use the property as it thought advantageous and convenient in performing its contracts and maximizing its profits from them."
United States v. Township of Muskegon, 355 U.S. at 355 U. S. 486.
The Michigan tax at issue in the first two cases applied only to use in connection with a business conducted for profit, United States v. City of Detroit, 355 U.S. at 355 U. S. 467-468, n. 1.
See also City of Detroit v. Murray Corp. of America, 355 U.S. at 355 U. S. 493, where there is emphasis on the fact that the taxpayer used the Federal government's personal property "in the course of its own business."
In M'Culloch v. Maryland, the State taxed notes issued by the Bank of the United States differently from any other property. But if the state tax in that case had applied to a national bank and also to a group of state-operated institutions which the State could subsidize in order to eliminate the economic burden of the tax -- but to no other taxpayers -- it surely would have been equally invalid. In such a situation, as in M'Culloch itself and as in this case, the federal instrumentality would have been vulnerable to discriminatory treatment by the State different from that accorded to the State's own constituents.

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