Opinion ID: 1145030
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: equal protection under the united states constitution

Text: Since Alaska has adopted a different standard for review of legislation for some equal protection purposes, [21] it will be necessary to determine separately whether the gear license requirement violates the federal constitution. The fourteenth amendment provides in part that no state may deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The United States Supreme Court has applied dual standards to equal protection challenges. The state must prove a compelling state interest to justify classifications based on race, [22] national origin [23] or alienage, [24] and such classifications are subjected to strict scrutiny. A similar standard is applied when fundamental rights are at stake. [25] In cases not involving suspect classes or fundamental rights, the United States Supreme Court has generally applied the less restrictive rational basis test. [26] Apokedak does not suggest that the Limited Entry Act involves a suspect classification, and the availability of employment opportunity has not been considered a fundamental right so as to require application of the compelling state interest test. [27] The applicable test, therefore, is whether the classification is reasonable, possesses some rational connection to the measure's legitimate purpose and treats all within the class alike. [28] Under this test, legislation is presumed to be reasonable, [29] and any reasonably conceivable facts justifying the classification will be accepted. [30] Historically, economic regulation usually has been challenged under the due process clause rather than on equal protection grounds. During the past century there has been a wide variation in the latitude accorded to legislative determinations regarding regulation of such activities. As one commentator has stated: The due process clause of the fourteenth amendment has experienced a history of chameleon-like construction by the United States Supreme Court. Like its fifth amendment companion, due process of law originally served simply as a procedural check on governmental encroachment upon individual rights. Near the end of the nineteenth century the notion that due process imposed substantive limitations on state and federal legislation found favor with a majority of the Supreme Court. The concept of liberty was extended to include the right to live and work where [one] willed and to earn his livelihood by any lawful calling. Legislation regulating economic activities was struck down as meddlesome interferences with the rights of the individual in violation of due process. Only economic activities deemed affected with a public interest, constituted proper subjects of governmental control. The determination as to what activities fell under the label shifted from a legislative to a judicial function. [31] But: [T]he day is gone when the Court uses the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to strike down state laws regulatory of business and industrial conditions, because they may be unwise, improvident, or out of harmony with a particular school of thought. [32] There no longer can be any question that when economic legislation is challenged, the court will defer to the judgment of the legislature concerning the desirability of particular statutory classifications. [33] We now apply these considerations to the Limited Entry Act. Under the federal rational basis standard, we must decide whether the classification of prior gear licensees as the class eligible to apply for entry permits is reasonable  that is, whether the license requirement possesses some rational connection to the measure's purpose. The overall economic and conservation goals of the Act are met by limiting the number of permits. The associated goal of preventing unjust discrimination in the allocation of the limited number of permits involves a legislative determination as to the relative hardship that will be imposed on different classes of applicants. [34] To obtain an entry permit, one had to have previously harvested fishery resources commercially as a gear licensee. AS 16.43.260. To be a gear licensee, one personally had to own or lease fishing gear and operate or assist in the operation of the fishing gear. AS 16.05.540. Thus, a person applying for an entry permit was required to have both previously owned or leased fishing gear and possessed a gear license. Since such persons would have had a unique status in the fishing industry, they alone, if prohibited from applying for a limited entry permit, would be deprived of that status which they had previously enjoyed, namely, that of a licensed gear operator. It is also reasonably conceivable that they generally would have the greater financial investment in the industry as owners or lessors of vessels and gear. Therefore, the gear license requirement is rationally related to the goal of preventing unjust discrimination in the allocation of entry permits. Considering those factors and the presumption of reasonableness, we conclude that under the federal constitution the classification does not violate the equal protection clause. New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976), removes any doubt. In Dukes, a New Orleans ordinance prohibited vendors from selling foodstuffs from push carts in the French Quarter, but exempted from the prohibition vendors who had continuously operated businesses within the same locality for eight years before the effective date of the amendment. There were only two operators who qualified for the exemption. In upholding the classification, [35] the Court set forth the standard to be utilized in determining whether an economic measure violates the federal equal protection requirement as follows: When local economic regulation is challenged solely as violating the Equal Protection Clause, this Court consistently defers to legislative determinations as to the desirability of particular statutory discriminations. Unless a classification trammels fundamental personal rights or is drawn upon inherently suspect distinctions such as race, religion, or alienage, our decisions presume the constitutionality of the statutory discriminations and require only that the classification challenged be rationally related to a legitimate state interest. States are accorded wide latitude in the regulation of their local economies under their police powers, and rational distinctions may be made with substantially less than mathematical exactitude. Legislatures may implement their program step by step, in such economic areas, adopting regulations that only partially ameliorate a perceived evil and deferring complete elimination of the evil to future regulations. In short, the judiciary may not sit as a superlegislature to judge the wisdom or desirability of legislative policy determinations made in areas that neither affect fundamental rights nor proceed along suspect lines in the local economic sphere, it is only the invidious discrimination, the wholly arbitrary act, which cannot stand consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment. [36] We hold that the gear license requirement for limited entry permit applicants does not violate the equal protection clause of the fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution. [37]