Opinion ID: 2000977
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Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Ten-year durational residency

Text: It is true that, prior to 1953, all honorably discharged veterans as defined in the Act who had reached the age of 62 years or were receiving a pension or compensation from the United States Veterans' Administration for total disability were entitled to a property tax exemption on the single requirement that they be legal residents of the State at the time of application for the exemption. See Revised Statutes, 1944, c. 81, s. 6, subs. X. The effect of the 1953 amendment (P.L. 1953, c. 291, s. 2) is to create three classes of veterans among those veterans residing in Maine at the time of application, otherwise eligible because of age or total disability: 1) those veterans who at the time of entry in the military service were then residents of the State; 2) those veterans who, although nonresidents of Maine at the time of entry, had accumulated a ten-year residency in Maine, whether consecutive or intermittently cumulative; [1] and 3) those veterans who, although residents of the State at the time of application, were not residents of Maine at the time of induction and had not in the past resided in the State for the period of ten years. Setting aside for the time being any consideration of the first stated class, we note that the sole differential criterion establishing entitlement to tax exemption benefits between equally qualified veterans of the other two classes is the ten-year durational residency of in-state oldtimers as it were, as compared to newcomers who claim residency in the State for lesser periods of time. The plaintiff contends that such classification impinges upon his constitutional right to travel without serving any compelling state interest, and is otherwise unrelated rationally to any legitimate governmental purpose in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and of Article I, Section 6-A of the Constitution of Maine. It is obvious that the statutory classification disadvantages the plaintiff who claims that the legislative structure invidiously discriminates against him. But classifications are permissible under the equal protection provisions of our federal and state constitutions. Not all discrimination based on classification is a denial of equal protection. The Legislature, having been given full power to make and establish all reasonable laws and regulations for the benefit of the people of the State, not repugnant to the State constitution nor to that of the United States (Article IV, Part Third, Section 1, Constitution of Maine), is endowed with wide discretion in enacting legislation which treats some classes of people differently from others, on condition, however, that the classification be not arbitrary, unreasonable or irrational, in other words, that the dissimilar treatment be rationally related to the objectives of the statute. Shapiro Bros. Shoe Co., Inc. v. LewistonAuburn Shoeworkers Protective Association, Me., 320 A.2d 247, 255 (1974). Legislation which provides governmental benefits, such as tax exemptions, to some but not to others is not necessarily violative of equal protection; but there must be some rational basis for the difference in treatment. It is not only the fact of discrimination but also the manner of discrimination between legislatively created classes that comes under the limitational curb imposed by the equal protection clause upon the legislative power to classify. See McNicholas v. York Beach Village Corporation, Me., 394 A.2d 264, 269 (1978). The traditional standard by which we review an asserted violation of the Equal Protection Clause is the rational basis test, i. e., the existence of a rational relation between the classification challenged and the intended goal of the legislation. McNicholas, supra, Id. at 268-269. See also Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 485, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970). But, if a fundamental personal right is involved or the categorization discriminates against a suspect class, then the difference is constitutionally defensible only if it furthers a compelling state interest. Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U.S. 307, 312, 96 S.Ct. 2562, 2566, 49 L.Ed.2d 520 (1976). [2] The Supreme Court of the United States has clearly indicated that the right to travel is a fundamental personal right that can be impinged only if to do so is necessary to promote a compelling governmental interest. Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 634, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 1331, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969). Although every durational residency requirement in itself places some burden on the exercise of the right to travel, not every such requirement constitutes that direct and substantial impingement on the right to travel necessary to bring the claimed violation within the scope of the constitutional prohibition so as to trigger the application of the strict scrutiny test. Where the individual interest affected does not involve a fundamental right and the residency requirement is not a real impediment to interstate travel, then the governmental purpose sought to be gained by the imposition of the residency requirement may be justified under the traditional rational-relation test and need not be so vindicated by the showing of a compelling state interest. See Town of Milton v. Civil Service Commission, 365 Mass. 368, 312 N.E.2d 188, 191 (1974). We do recognize that the veteran's right to a tax exemption preference does not in and of itself involve a fundamental right, such as the right to the basic necessities of life, like food, shelter, health care, etc. It is obvious, however, that the reference statute, in making veterans' tax exemptions depend on a ten-year residency in the State, has a substantial penalizing effect on those veterans who have recently exercised their right to travel by denying them benefits while granting the same to others whose sole distinctive qualification for eligibility to take advantage of such state benefits is the longevity of their residence in the State. In Cole v. Housing Authority of City of Newport, 435 F.2d 807 (1970), the Circuit Court of Appeals, First Circuit, held the two-year residency requirement adopted by the defendant Housing Authority to establish eligibility for admission to public housing so penalized the right to travel that its justification could be successfully defended only by demonstrating that the requirement furthers a compelling state interest. Id. at 811. The reason offered in support of the instant residency requirement is that a veteran's residence in Maine for a period of ten years establishes an equivalency standard for consideration of the veteran as a son or daughter of Maine, to the same degree as residency at the time of entry into the service is recognized for the purpose of rewarding the State's military personnel for their patriotism in serving in the armed forces of the United States. Such an artificial conceptualization is more fanciful than real. It is not realistic to believe the Legislature had the above stated equation in mind when it enacted the veterans' tax exemption statute, fully aware, as we must presume, that veterans born in Maine, the true sons and daughters of the State, were being excluded from the State's bounty if they were not residents of the State at the time of induction or had not been residents of Maine for ten years prior to making the claim of exemption. As a matter of historical fact, the legislative purpose surfaces as based on other considerations. When the amendment was reported to the House of Representatives with the unanimous recommendation that it ought to pass, Mr. Low, chairman of the Committee on Taxation, addressed the House and commented in pertinent part as follows: I would like to say just a few words about this new draft, which is a sincere effort to do the fair thing by both the towns and the veterans. It has three major objectives and three substantial changes altogether from the old bill. In the first place, ..... In the second place, there is a requirement that a veteran should either have been a resident of the State of Maine at the time he enlisted or should reside for at least ten years in the State before he can claim the exemption. This clause will stop people coming into the State, who have never lived here before, and claiming the exemption. In the third place, if the exemption in any town exceeds three per cent of the total levy, then the State will pay seventy per cent of the excess. That will prevent any town such as Chelsea, who has lost twelve per cent of their property, from being unduly penalized. (Emphasis provided) Legislative Record, Vol. 1, Ninety-Sixth Legislature, 1953, p. 1044. From the above legislative comment, it clearly appears that the overriding purpose of the amendment was to protect the towns against what was perceived to be an unreasonable surrender of the taxation process and its severe impact on the fiscal policies of certain towns. The ten-year residency requirement, although originally stated to be a means of discouraging outsiders from moving into the State, when viewed in the light most favorable to the veteran and the municipality, could be appraised, as a reasonable device for rewarding the patriotism of the State's veterans without excessive impact on the towns' taxing power, by limiting the exemption to veterans who allegedly have a higher claim to the State's bounty by reason of their longer term of residence in the State. But, as pointed out in Cole v. Housing Authority of City of Newport, supra, at 813, such preferences given to longer term residents either on the basis of past tax contributions or merely as a sentimental value judgment are constitutionally impermissible and unjustified under the applicable strict scrutiny test. The objective of protecting the municipal fisc by discriminatory means or promoting provincial prejudices in favor of long-time residents is the very thing that the Equal Protection Clause was intended to proscribe. See also Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, 394 U.S. at 632-633, 89 S.Ct. at 1322, 1330. Similarly, in Strong v. Collatos, 593 F.2d 420 (1979), the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unconstitutional as in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States the provision of a Massachusetts statute requiring a durational residency in the Commonwealth of at least three years as a condition of eligibility for veterans' welfare benefits. [3] As we stated in State v. Knowles, Me., 371 A.2d 624 (1977), we should adhere to our policy of deference to First Circuit decisions in order to promote harmonious federal-state relationships on a federal constitutional question, especially in the instant case where the history of the reference legislation definitely indicates that the ten-year residency requirement to qualify for a veteran's tax exemption was enacted to prevent those veterans who exercised their constitutional right of travel only recently from claiming the gratuity, while permitting long-term residents to receive the benefit. We are convinced that this portion of the amendment in requiring a ten-year durational residency to qualify for a tax exemption places a direct and real impediment upon veterans' constitutional right to travel and penalizes invidiously the exercise of such right. It cannot be justified under the strict test of showing a compelling state interest to be achieved by the classification. Nor do we see constitutional validity, even if the standard of rational relationship were applied.