Opinion ID: 2190751
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Constitutional Right to Travel and Work

Text: The United States Supreme Court in Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S. Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969) held that the constitutional right to travel may be impinged by statutes only if it is necessary to do so to promote a compelling governmental interest. The Court found no such interest in statutes which denied welfare assistance to applicants who had not resided in the jurisdiction at least one year. The Judges of the First Circuit found that two new arrivals in town were similarly denied their constitutional right to travel by a regulation which admitted to a low-rent public housing project only applicants who had been residents of the community for at least two years. Cole v. Housing Authority of the City of Newport, supra. The applicants in these federal cases were residents in the offending jurisdictions. The very purpose of the attempted restrictions was to prevent indigent people such as they from taking residence in the new jurisdictions and demanding public assistance as eligible citizensthe purpose, in fact, was to inhibit migration. As Chief Judge Coffin reminds us in Cole, the United State Supreme Court used travel in the sense of migration with intent to settle and abide. Not all residency requirements are forbidden. [7] Inasmuch as our disposition of this appeal makes it unnecessary for us to reach the question of the constitutionality of the ordinance, its effect upon these particular Defendants does not require discussion. But assuming that this sort of travel is constitutionally protected as such, the Court in Shapiro cautioned the reader that it did not mean its holding to suggest that all residency requirements are prohibited some may promote compelling state interests and others may not actually be penalties on the right to travel. Similarly, the Defendants concede that the constitutional objections which they raise as to tying opportunity to work to residency (Donnelly v. City of Manchester, 111 N.H. 50, 274 A.2d 789 (1971)) may be overcome if a proper relationship exists between the restriction and a proper governmental purpose. Krzewinski v. Kugler, 338 F.Supp. 492 (D.C.N.J.1972). We are satisfied that the State's interest in the conservation of its clams together with the desirability of limiting the number of diggers on proper occasions in order to further that purpose furnishes a compelling State interest which permits the State to authorize the municipalities to bar digging by nonresidents, on proper occasions, also.