Court Opinion

ID: 9428806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:24:50.231881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:15.390525
License: Public Domain

Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
Alaska’s dividend distribution scheme respresents one State’s effort to apportion unique economic benefits among its citizens. Although the wealth received from the oil deposits of Prudhoe Bay may be quite unlike the economic resources enjoyed by most States, Alaska's distribution of that wealth is in substance no different from any other State’s allocation of economic benefits. The distribution scheme being in the nature of economic regulation, I am at a loss to see the rationality behind the Court’s invalidation of it as a denial of equal protection. This Court has long held that state economic regulations are presumptively valid, and violate the Fourteenth Amendment only in the rarest of circumstances:
“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. See, e. g., Lehnhausen v. Lake Shore Auto Parts Co., 410 U. S. 356 (1973). 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 regu-*82Iation of their local economies under their police powers, and rational distinctions may be made with substantially less than mathematical exactitude.” New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U. S. 297, 303 (1976).
See also Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U. S. 456 (1981); United States Railroad Retirement Board v. Fritz, 449 U. S. 166 (1980); Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U. S. 794 (1976).
Despite the highly deferential approach which we invariably have taken toward state economic regulations, the Court today finds the retroactive aspect of the Alaska distribution scheme violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court concludes that the State’s first two justifications are not rationally related to the retroactive portion of the distribution scheme, and that the third justification — the reward of citizens for their past contributions — is not a legitimate state objective. But the illegitimacy of a State’s recognizing the past contributions of its citizens has been established by the Court only in certain cases considering an infringement of the right to travel,1 and the majority itself rightly declines to ap*83ply the strict scrutiny analysis of those right-to-travel cases. See ante, at 60-61. The distribution scheme at issue in this case impedes no person’s right to travel to and settle in Alaska; if anything, the prospect of receiving annual cash dividends would encourage immigration to Alaska. The State’s third justification cannot, therefore, be dismissed simply by quoting language about its legitimacy from right-to-travel cases which have no relevance to the question before us.
So understood, this case clearly passes equal protection muster. There can be no doubt that the state legislature acted rationally when it concluded that dividends retroactive to the year of statehood would “recognize the ‘contributions of various kinds, both tangible and intangible,’ which residents have made during their years of state residency.” 619 P. 2d 448, 458 (Alaska 1980). Nor can there be any doubt that Alaska, perhaps more than any other State in the Union, has good reason for recognizing such contributions.2 Be*84cause the distribution scheme is thus rationally based, I dissent from its invalidation under the guise of equal protection analysis.3 In striking down the Alaskan scheme, the Court seems momentarily to have forgotten “the principle that the Fourteenth Amendment gives the federal courts no power to impose upon the States their views of what constitutes wise economic or social policy.” Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U. S. 471, 486 (1970).

 The Court relies upon Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969), and Vlandis v. Kline, 412 U. S. 441 (1973), in holding that Alaska may not justify its dividend distribution scheme by a desire to reward its citizens for their past contributions. In Shapiro, however, the Court found that the classification at issue “touche[d] on the fundamental right of interstate movement” and therefore could be justified only if it promoted a “compelling state interest.” 394 U. S., at 638 (emphasis in original). Similarly, Vlandis concerned the right to move to and establish residency in Connecticut, and noted only in dicta that rewarding citizens for their past contributions was an impermissible state objective. See 412 U. S., at 449-450, and n. 6.
Although I have expressed my disagreement with this holding even in the right-to-travel cases, see Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U. S. 250, 286-287 (1974) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); Vlandis v. Kline, supra, at 468-469 (same), there is no need to rely upon that dissenting position here. The majority does not analyze this as a right-to-travel case. Compare ante, at 60-61, with Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, supra, at 261-262, and Shapiro v. Thompson, supra, at 634, 638.

 As the Alaska Supreme Court noted, those who have lived in Alaska from the year of its statehood have borne unusual expenses and hardships: “ ‘A government such as the one embodied in the Alaska constitution, . . . with its complete range of governmental services, was expensive for a State with limited sources of taxation. Alaska could only boast a couple of pulp mills. . . . The State’s business enterprises were small and catered mostly to local needs. In addition, Alaska’s population was modest and hardly amounted to more than that of a medium-sized city in the continental United States.
“ ‘Accordingly, revenues were small. Yet, the demands were great. The State government had to provide all the governmental services and social overhead required by modem American society. For instance, it would have been relatively simple to build a few roads, furnish normal police protection, and establish the customary school facilities. But nothing was normal in Alaska; it was and remains a land of superlatives. Subarctic engineering is relatively new, but the State would have to face the problem of permafrost conditions that frequently cause the roadtop to buckle and heave. Police protection would have to be provided for an area one-fifth the size of the forty-eight United States but with very few roads available. Flying would become a way of life for law enforcement officials as well as other Alaskans — an expensive way of life. “Bush schools” scattered along *84the Aleutian chain, through the Yukon Valley, and on the Seaward Peninsula and the islands of southeastern Alaska were expensive to maintain. It was not until the discovery of oil on a large scale that the picture changed.’ ” 619 P. 2d, at 462, n. 37 (quoting C. Naske, An Interpretive History of Alaskan Statehood 169-170 (1973)).

 I also disagree with the suggestion of Justice O’Connoe that the Alaska distribution scheme contravenes the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Art. IV of the Constitution. That Clause assures that nonresidents of a State shall enjoy the same privileges and immunities as residents enjoy: “It was designed to insure to a citizen of State A who ventures into State B the same privileges which the citizens of State B enjoy.” Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385, 395 (1948). We long ago held that the Clause has no application to a citizen of the State whose laws are complained of. “The constitutional provision there alluded to did not create those rights, which it called privileges and immunities of citizens of the States. It threw around them in that clause no security for the citizen of the State in which they were claimed or exercised. Nor did it profess to control the power of the State governments over the rights of its own citizens.” Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36, 77 (1873).