Opinion ID: 1209439
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Substantiality Of The Justification As A Matter Of Law.

Text: As noted, the purpose of the local hire law is to exclude non-residents from public construction jobs so that more jobs will be available to Alaskans. In our view this is not a permissible justification for discrimination under the privileges and immunities clause. To state the same conclusion in conventional privileges and immunities terms, the justification is not substantial. A related point recently was made by the United States Supreme Court in New Hampshire v. Piper, ___ U.S. at ___ n. 18, 105 S.Ct. at 1279 n. 18. One reason suggested for New Hampshire's law prohibiting non-resident lawyers from becoming members of the bar was the protection of its own lawyers from professional competition. The court dismissed this suggestion: [T]his reason is not `substantial'. The privileges and immunities clause was designed primarily to prevent such economic protectionism. Discrimination for the purpose of benefiting local residents economically was recognized by us as improper in Lynden Transport, Inc. v. State, 532 P.2d 700 (Alaska 1975) which involved a statute granting grandfather rights to resident trucking companies but not to non-resident trucking companies. We struck down the statute stating: A discrimination between residents and non-residents based solely on the object of assisting the one class over the other economically can not be upheld under either the privileges and immunities or equal protection clauses... . Benefiting economic interests of residents over non-residents is not a purpose which may constitutionally vindicate legislation... . Id. at 710-11. Other authorities which suggest that a state may not discriminate against non-residents in order to benefit residents economically include:  Hicklin, 437 U.S. at 526, 98 S.Ct. at 2487, 57 L.Ed.2d at 405. The court observed that for a state to attempt to eliminate its unemployment problem by requiring private employers within the state to discriminate against non-residents was a policy which was at least dubious.  Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385, 68 S.Ct. 1156, 92 L.Ed. 1460 (1948). South Carolina was precluded from excluding non-resident shrimp fishermen in order to create a commercial monopoly which benefited resident fishermen.  Ward v. Maryland, 79 U.S. (12 Wall) 418, 20 L.Ed. 449 (1871). Maryland was precluded from discriminating against non-resident salesmen so that resident merchants might reap greater economic benefits.  Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. v. Ward, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 1676, 84 L.Ed.2d 751 (1985). The Court struck an Alabama law discriminating against out-of-state insurance companies as violative of the equal protection clause. The purpose of the law was to promote domestic industry. The Court held that this purpose was not a legitimate justification for discriminatory treatment: [P]romotion of domestic business within a state, by discriminating against foreign corporations that wish to compete by doing business there, is not a legitimate state purpose. ___ U.S. at ___, 105 S.Ct. at 1683. [8] These cases reflect the view that our constitution protects non-residents from economic discrimination so that our nation can function as an economic unit. Justice Brennan expressed this theme in his concurring opinion in Allied Stores of Ohio v. Bowers, 358 U.S. 522, 533, 79 S.Ct. 437, 444, 3 L.Ed.2d 480, 488 (1959) cited with approval by the Court in Metropolitan Life, ___ U.S. at ___, 105 S.Ct. at 1682, stating: Wheeling [ Steel Corp. v. Glander 337 U.S. 562, 69 S.Ct. 1291, 93 L.Ed. 1544] teaches that a distinction which burdens ... nonresidents but not ... residents is outside the constitutional pale. But this is not because no rational ground can be conceived for a classification which discriminates against nonresidents solely because they are nonresidents: could not such a ground be found in the State's benign and beneficent desire to favor its own residents, to increase their prosperity at the expense of outlanders, to protect them from, and give them an advantage over, foreign competition? These bases of legislative distinction are adopted in the national policies of too many countries, including from time to time our own, to say that, absolutely considered, they are arbitrary or irrational. The proper analysis, it seems to me is that Wheeling applied the Equal Protection Clause to give effect to its role to protect our federalism by denying Ohio the power constitutionally to discriminate in favor of its own residents against the residents of other state members of our federation. Restricting entry by non-residents into a job market will make more positions available to residents. It is not difficult to make a case to a sympathetic legislature, whose members are accountable only to residents, that residents are deserving of protection because some of them are unemployed. But the universality of this condition is itself a reason why it is impermissible as a justification in privileges and immunities analysis. If every state could exclude or severely limit non-resident workers because some of its residents were unemployed our country would be little more than a league of states rather than the Union which now exists. Paul v. Virginia, 75 U.S. (8 Wall) 168, 180, 19 L.Ed. 357, 360 (1869). Such a result would run strongly counter to the policy of national economic unity on which the privileges and immunities clause is based. The result would not be much better if the power to exclude non-resident workers were limited to those states with above average unemployment. Many states fit that category and many of the others, no doubt, have particular industries in which a case for protection can be made.