Opinion ID: 1395261
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Nature and Extent of Infringement of Rights

Text: The most significant dispute between the parties here is over the nature and extent of the right infringed. [2] The Zobels contend that the three-year prior filing requirement is essentially a durational residency requirement, thus triggering strict scrutiny and requiring a compelling state justification. The state insists that the requirement does not discourage exercise of the right to migrate. In my view, the appropriate focus is whether, and to what extent, the operation of the statute will have the effect of penalizing United States citizens for exercising their constitutional right to migrate between states. [3] Although precise figures are lacking, the state has conceded that the exemption will have a differential impact and I reach the same conclusion. [4] Proportionately, a new resident is much more likely than an old resident to be subjected to an income tax under this scheme. The parties have devoted a significant portion of their arguments to the subject of the intent of the legislature in passing this enactment- i.e., whether or not the statute was intended to discriminate against new residents. The notion that a plaintiff must show that a statute was intended to discriminate against a particular group is based on a line of United States Supreme Court cases dealing with racial discrimination: Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229, 96 S.Ct. 2040, 48 L.Ed.2d 597 (1976), and Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 97 S.Ct. 555, 50 L.Ed.2d 450 (1977). [5] Based on the considerations set forth in footnote five, I would not require such a showing when the effect of the legislation is shown-or is stipulated-to impact unequally on groups according to whether or not they have exercised their constitutional right of interstate migration. I would not make a showing of discriminatory intent a necessary condition of finding that a classification penalizes an individual's exercise of the constitutional right of interstate migration. Both the nature and the extent of the infringement must be examined. Here, this translates into assessing exactly how the unequal impact penalizes the exercise of the right of interstate migration. I think that this tax can be properly characterized as an income tax levied only on an individual's first three years of contact with Alaska; or, as its differential impact is uncontested, a tax levied primarily on new residents. As such, I think that the scheme tends to penalize the exercise of an individual's right to migrate into Alaska in two ways. Its most obvious effect is the financial disincentive to enter: a new resident is subjected to three years of a tax burden which is considerably heavier, on an individual basis, than it would be were the same aggregate tax amount to be levied on new and old residents alike. [6] Secondly, it has a symbolic value which cannot be ignored. Whether or not the people of Alaska mean to do so, it projects to other United States citizens a marked hostility to new entrants by imposing a tax on them which is not imposed on long-term residents. [7] Thus, I conclude that the differential impact on old and new residents effected by the exemption scheme clearly does penalize the exercise of an individual's right of interstate migration, in the manner noted above. As such, the state's purposes must be weightier, and the fair and substantial relationship between means and ends more narrowly drawn than if the statute did not penalize the exercise of the right of interstate migration (or if it penalized this to a lesser degree); but these concerns need not reach the level of being necessary to promote a compelling state interest, as we are not applying the strict scrutiny test.