Court Opinion

ID: 9631238
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:32:28.946793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:50.815684
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, Justice,
dissenting.
I agree with the court’s resolution of the intervention, standing and waiver issues. I suggest, however, that the court has misapplied the Alaska equal protection clause to this case.
The court, in a footnote, significantly changes the way an equal protection analysis is conducted under the Alaska equal protection clause. Op. at n. 19. The court creates a federal privileges and immunities “floor” for an Alaska equal protection analysis when a legislative enactment impairs a right arguably protected under the Alaska equal protection clause. If a nonresident of Alaska could successfully challenge the enactment under the federal privileges and immunities clause, then the enactment violates the Alaska equal protection clause. If it does not violate the federal privileges and immunities clause, the enactment must then be examined under the three-part Brown equal protection analysis. Alaska Pacific Assurance Co. v. Brown, 687 P.2d 264, 269-70 (Alaska 1984).
Regardless of the validity of this fundamental change in the way equal protection claims are analyzed under the Alaska Constitution, an examination of the preference law under this “new” approach does not support the court’s conclusion that the preference law violates the Alaska equal *637protection clause. In analyzing this preference law, I will use the approach suggested by the court in footnote 19, first applying federal privileges and immunities law, and then the three-part Brown test.
The United States Supreme Court considered a law similar to the one at issue here in United Bldg. & Constr. Trades Council v. Mayor of Camden, 465 U.S. 208, 104 S.Ct. 1020, 79 L.Ed.2d 249 (1984). The City of Camden enacted an ordinance requiring that at least 40 percent of the employees of contractors and subcontractors working on city construction projects be Camden residents. Although the Supreme Court remanded the case for further factual findings it stated that:
Every inquiry under the Privileges and Immunities Clause “must ... be conducted with due regard for the principle that the States should have considerable leeway in analyzing local evils and in prescribing appropriate cures.” This caution is particularly appropriate when a government body is merely setting conditions on the expenditure of funds it controls.
Id. at 222-23, 104 S.Ct. at 1030 (citations omitted).
Notwithstanding that the law was still to be examined under the privileges and immunities clause, the Supreme Court held that:
The fact that Camden is expending its own funds or funds it administers in accordance with the terms of a grant is certainly a factor — perhaps the crucial factor — to be considered in evaluating whether the statute’s discrimination violates the Privileges and Immunities Clause.
Id. at 221, 104 S.Ct. at 1029.
The Supreme Court in United Building distinguished the Alaska hire law at issue in Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978), stating that the Alaska hire law was invalidated as “ ‘an attempt to force virtually all businesses that benefit in some way from the economic ripple effect of Alaska’s decision to develop its oil and gas resources to bias their employment practices in favor of the State’s residents.’” United Building, 465 U.S. at 223, 104 S.Ct. at 1030 (quoting Hicklin, 437 U.S. at 532, 98 S.Ct. at 2491). In contrast, the Camden ordinance was “limited in scope to employees working directly on city public works projects.” Id.
The same distinction can be made in the present case; the Alaska hire law is only applicable to publicly funded construction contracts. While the Supreme Court in United Building found it “impossible to evaluate Camden’s justification [for the law] on the record as it now stands,” id., it is clear that the scope of the law is an important factor in determining whether a privileges and immunities violation exists.
In addition, the justifications for the law, the “evil” presented by nonresidents and the way in which the law seeks to reach its objectives are relevant considerations.
In Hicklin, the Supreme Court held an Alaska hire law unconstitutional under the privileges and immunities clause of the United States Constitution. 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482. The Alaska hire law at issue in Hicklin was enacted for the purpose of reducing unemployment within Alaska. The law required that “ ‘all oil and gas leases, easements or right-of-way permits for oil or gas pipeline purposes, unitization agreements, or any renegotiation of any of the preceding to which the state is a party’ contain a provision ‘requiring the employment of qualified Alaska residents’ in preference to nonresidents.” Id. at 520, 98 S.Ct. at 2485 (quoting AS 38.40.030(a) (1977)).
The Supreme Court, using an analysis first enunciated in Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U.S. 385, 68 S.Ct. 1156, 92 L.Ed. 1460 (1947), reh’g denied 335 U.S. 837, 69 S.Ct. 12, 93 L.Ed. 389 (1948), stated that nonresidents were not “a peculiar source of the evil” of Alaska’s “uniquely high unemployment.” Id. 437 U.S. at 526, 98 S.Ct. at 2487 (citations omitted). The Supreme Court noted that:
What evidence the record does contain indicates that the major cause of Alaska’s high unemployment was not the influx of nonresidents seeking employment, but rather the fact that a substan*638tial number of Alaska's jobless residents — especially the unemployed Eskimo and Indian residents — were unable to secure employment either because of their lack of education and job training or because of their geographical remoteness from job opportunities; and that the employment of nonresidents threatened to deny jobs to Alaska residents only to the extent that jobs for which untrained residents were being prepared might be filled by nonresidents before the residents’ training was completed.
Id. at 526-27, 98 S.Ct. at 2487-88.1
The Supreme Court went on to state that even if nonresidents were “a peculiar source of evil,” the Alaska hire law failed to pass constitutional muster because the discrimination against nonresidents did not bear a “substantial relationship to the particular ‘evil’ they are said to present.” Id. at 527, 98 S.Ct. at 2488. No “substantial relationship” existed because the Alaska hire law created an across-the-board preference for residents over nonresidents for all jobs covered by the law, id., noting:
If Alaska is to attempt to ease its unemployment problem by forcing employers within the State to discriminate against nonresidents — again, a policy which may present serious constitutional questions — the means by which it does so must be more closely tailored to aid the unemployed the Act is intended to benefit. Even if a statute granting an employment preference to unemployed residents or to residents enrolled in job-training programs might be permissible, Alaska Hire’s across-the-board grant of a job preference to all Alaskan residents clearly is not.
Id. at 527-28, 98 S.Ct. at 2488.
[Although the Privileges and Immunities Clause ‘does not preclude disparity of treatment in the many situations where there are perfectly valid independent reasons for it ... [i]t does bar discrimination against citizens of other States where there is no substantial reason for the discrimination beyond the mere fact that they are citizens of other States.’
Id. at 525, 98 S.Ct. at 2487 (quoting Toomer, 334 U.S. at 396, 68 S.Ct. at 1162).
In this case nonresidents are being discriminated against because only a finite number of job opportunities exist in geographically remote areas. The court mis-characterizes the state’s purpose in enacting the preference law as intending to confer an economic benefit on workers in certain regions. This, however, is only the means by which the state seeks to achieve the end of reducing, to the maximum extent possible, alcoholism, child abuse, domestic violence and other related social ills in certain regions of Alaska.2
In addition, this Alaska hire law requires a “reasonable relationship between the danger represented by nomcitizens, as a *639class, and the ... discrimination practiced upon them.” Toomer, 334 U.S. at 399, 68 S.Ct. at 1163. Unlike the situation in Toomer and Hicklin where the discrimination between residents and nonresidents was total, this hire law creates only a partial preference in favor of eligible residents in certain occupations in economically distressed areas. Once again, it is hard to imagine a law which more narrowly balances an individual’s right to employment with the state’s concern for remedying social ills among Alaska residents living in these areas.
We now turn to an examination of the preference law under the three-part Brown analysis. The court characterizes the right affected by the regional preference law as the right to engage in an economic endeav- or within a particular industry and concludes that it is an important one. As a result, the court states that close scrutiny of legislative enactments which impair this right require the underlying state interest to be legitimate and important and the nexus between this interest and the enactment be close.
Once again, it is the court’s declaration of the illegitimacy of the state interest underlying the preference law at issue in this appeal that is misguided. The court concludes that the state’s interest in enacting the preference law was to confer an economic benefit on workers in certain regions of the state. The characterization of this underlying interest as purely economic in nature is simply wrong.
Conferring economic benefits on workers in designated regions is the means by which the state is seeking to achieve the end of alleviating social ills in certain regions of Alaska. See supra note 2. It cannot be seriously argued that the state’s interest in reducing to the maximum extent possible the alcoholism, child abuse, domestic violence and related social ills in areas where they are causally related to high unemployment is not a legitimate state goal. It also cannot be seriously argued that the state’s interest is not equally important, if not more important, than the individual’s right to engage in a particular economic endeavor. See Alaska Const. art. VII, § 4 (“The legislature shall provide for the promotion and protection of public health”); § 5 (“The legislature shall provide for public welfare”).
The court states that even if it found the legislative purpose to be legitimate, it would strike down the preference law because “it does not prioritize relief for those areas most affected by nonresident employment.” The court is requiring the legislature to use the least restrictive means to achieve the goal, effectively subjecting the law to strict scrutiny.
The court does not say, nor could it, that the nexus between the state interest and the state’s means of furthering that interest are not reasonable. The commissioner does not apply the preference to a region until the link is established between a high level of unemployment and the social ills sought to be reduced. AS 36.10.160(b)(2); 8 AAC 30.068. “To require a reasonable nexus between legislative means and ends is not to demand perfection in classification.” Rose v. Commercial Fisheries Entry Comm’n, 647 P.2d 154, 160 (Alaska 1982).
In my view the court places undue emphasis on an individual’s right to employment, unnecessarily subordinating to that right the constitutionally permissible state objective of reducing to the maximum extent possible the endemic alcoholism, child abuse, domestic violence and related social ills in certain areas of Alaska. As a result, I would uphold the law as constitutional.

. The Supreme Court referred to a report which discussed reasons for high unemployment rates in Alaska. The report remarked that:
The skill levels of in-migrants and seasonal workers are generally higher than those of the unemployed or under-employed resident workers. Their ability to command jobs in Alaska is a sympton [sic] of, rather than the cause of conditions resulting in high unemployment rates, particularly among Alaska Natives. Those who need the jobs the most tend to be undereducated, untrained, or living in areas of the state remote from job opportunities. Unless unemployed residents — most of whom are Eskimos and Indians — have access to job markets and receive the education and training required to fit them into Alaska’s increasingly technological economy and unless there is a restructuring of labor demands, new jobs will continue to be filled by persons from other states who have the necessary qualifications. Federal Field Committee for Development Planning in Alaska, Economic Outlook for Alaska 311-312 (1971) (emphasis added; footnote omitted).
Hicklin, 437 U.S. 527, n. 10, 98 S.Ct. 2488, n. 10.
There is no reason to believe that these observations do not hold true today.

. This objective is apparent from the statute and regulations. The preference does not even become applicable until the commissioner has determined that “the lack of employment opportunities in the zone has substantially contributed to serious social or economic problems in the zone.” AS 36.10.160(b)(2). "[T]he lack of employment opportunities has substantially contributed to serious social or economic problems if changes in indicators of social and economic problems are linked to changes in the number of people who want to work and are unable to obtain work.” 8 AAC 30.068.