Court Opinion

ID: 9429124
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:25:44.075663+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:17.309665
License: Public Domain

Justice Rehnquist,
dissenting.
Today we learn from the Court that a State runs afoul of the First Amendment proscription of laws “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” where the State structures its taxing system to the advantage of newspapers. This seems very much akin to protecting something so over-zealously that in the end it is smothered. While the Court purports to rely on the intent of the “Framers of the First Amendment,” I believe it safe to assume that in 1791 “abridge” meant the same thing it means today: to diminish or curtail. Not until the Court’s decision in this case, nearly two centuries after adoption of the First Amendment, has it been read to prohibit activities which in no way diminish or curtail the freedoms it protects.
I agree with the Court that the First Amendment does not per se prevent the State of Minnesota from regulating the press even though such regulation imposes an economic burden. It is evident from the numerous cases relied on by the *597Court, which I need not repeat here, that this principle has been long settled. Ante, at 581. I further agree with the Court that application of general sales and use taxes to the press would be sanctioned under this line of cases. Ante, at 586-587, n. 9. Therefore, I also agree with the Court to the extent it holds that any constitutional attack on the Minnesota scheme must be aimed at the classifications used in that taxing scheme. Ante, at 583. But it is at this point that I part company with my colleagues.
The Court recognizes in several parts of its opinion that the State of Minnesota could avoid constitutional problems by imposing on newspapers the 4% sales tax that it imposes on other retailers. Ante, at 586-590, and nn. 9, 13. Rather than impose such a tax, however, the Minnesota Legislature decided to provide newspapers with an exemption from the sales tax and impose a 4% use tax on ink and paper; thus, while, both taxes are part of one “system of sales and use taxes,” 314 N. W. 2d 201, 203 (1981), newspapers are classified differently within that system.* The problem the Court finds too difficult to deal with is whether this difference in treatment results in a significant burden on newspapers.
The record reveals that in 1974 the Minneapolis Star & Tribune had an average daily circulation of 489,345 copies. Id., at 203-204, nn. 4 and 5. Using the price we were informed of at argument of 250 per copy, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 46, gross sales revenue for the year would be $38,168,910. The Sunday circulation for 1974 was 640,756; even assuming that it did not sell for more than the daily paper, gross sales revenue for the year would be at least $8,329,828. Thus, total sales revenues in 1974 would be $46,498,738. Had a 4% sales tax *598been imposed, the Minneapolis Star & Tribune would have been liable for $1,859,950 in 1974. The same “complexities of factual economic proof” can be analyzed for 1975. Daily circulation was 481,789; at 250 per copy, gross sales revenue for the year would be $37,579,542. The Sunday circulation for 1975 was 619,154; at 250 per copy, gross sales revenue for the year would be $8,049,002. Total sales revenues in 1975 would be $45,628,544; at a 4% rate, the sales tax for 1975 would be $1,825,142. Therefore, had the sales tax been imposed, as the Court agrees would have been permissible, the Minneapolis Star & Tribune’s liability for 1974 and 1975 would have been $3,685,092.
The record further indicates that the Minneapolis Star & Tribune paid $608,634 in use taxes in 1974 and $636,113 in 1975 — a total liability of $1,244,747. See 314 N. W. 2d, at 203-204, nn. 4 and 5. We need no expert testimony from modern day Euclids or Einsteins to determine that the $1,224,747 paid in use taxes is significantly less burdensome than the $3,685,092 that could have been levied by a sales tax. A fortiori, the Minnesota taxing scheme which singles out newspapers for “differential treatment” has benefited, not burdened, the “freedom of speech, [and] of the press.”
Ignoring these calculations, the Court concludes that “differential treatment” alone in Minnesota’s sales and use tax scheme requires that the statutes be found “presumptively unconstitutional” and declared invalid “unless the State asserts a counterbalancing interest of compelling importance that it cannot achieve without differential taxation.” Ante, at 585. The “differential treatment” standard that the Court has conjured up is unprecedented and unwarranted. To my knowledge this Court has never subjected governmental action to the most stringent constitutional review solely on the basis of “differential treatment” of particular groups. The case relied on by the Court, Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley, 408 U. S. 92, 95-96 (1972), certainly does not stand for this proposition. In Mosley all picketing except “peaceful picketing” was prohibited within a particular public area. *599Thus, “differential treatment” was not the key to the Court’s decision; rather the essential fact was that unless a person was considered a “peaceful picketer” his speech through this form of expression would be totally abridged within the area.
Of course, all governmentally created classifications must have some “rational basis.” See Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483 (1955); Railway Express Agency, Inc. v. New York, 336 U. S. 106 (1949). The fact that they have been enacted by a presumptively rational legislature, however, arms them with a presumption of rationality. We have shown the greatest deference to state legislatures in devising their taxing schemes. As we said in Allied Stores of Ohio, Inc. v. Bowers, 358 U. S. 522 (1959):
“The States have a very wide discretion in the laying of their taxes. When dealing with their proper domestic concerns, and not trenching upon the prerogatives of the National Government or violating the guaranties of the Federal Constitution, the States have the attribute of sovereign powers in devising their fiscal systems to ensure revenue and foster their local interests. . . . The State may impose different specific taxes upon different trades and professions and may vary the rate of excise upon various products. It is not required to resort to close distinctions or to maintain a precise, scientific uniformity with reference to composition, use or value. [Citations omitted.] ‘To hold otherwise would be to subject the essential taxing power of the State to an intolerable supervision, hostile to the basic principles of our Government....’” Id., at 526-527 (quoting Ohio Oil Co. v. Conway, 281 U. S. 146, 159 (1930)).
See also Kahn v. Shevin, 416 U. S. 351 (1974); Independent Warehouses, Inc. v. Scheele, 331 U. S. 70 (1947); Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U. S. 83 (1940); Fox v. Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, 294 U. S. 87 (1935); New York Rapid Transit Corp. v. City of New York, 303 U. S. 573 (1938).
*600Where the State devises classifications that infringe on the fundamental guarantees protected by the Constitution the Court has demanded more of the State in justifying its action. But there is no infringement, and thus the Court has never required more, unless the State’s classifications significantly burden these specially protected rights. As we said in Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia, 427 U. S. 307, 312 (1976) (per curiam) (emphasis added), “equal protection analysis requires strict scrutiny of a legislative classification only when the classification impermissibly interferes with the exercise of a fundamental right. ...” See also California Medical Assn. v. FEC, 453 U. S. 182 (1981); Maher v. Roe, 432 U. S. 464 (1977); Storer v. Brown, 415 U. S. 724 (1974); American Party of Texas v. White, 415 U. S. 767 (1974); San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 1 (1973). To state it in terms of the freedoms at issue here, no First Amendment issue is raised unless First Amendment rights have been infringed; for if there has been no infringement, then there has been no “abridgment” of those guarantees. See Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U. S. 665 (1972).
Today the Court departs from this rule, refusing to look at the record and determine whether the classifications in the Minnesota use and sales tax statutes significantly burden the First Amendment rights of appellant and its fellow newspapers. The Court offers as an explanation for this failure the self-reproaching conclusion that
“courts as institutions are poorly equipped to evaluate with precision the relative burdens of various methods of taxation. The complexities of factual economic proof always present a certain potential for error, and courts have little familiarity with the process of evaluating the relative economic burden of taxes. In sum, the possibility of error inherent in the proposed rule poses too great a threat to concerns at the heart of the First Amendment, and we cannot tolerate that possibility. Minne*601sota, therefore, has offered no adequate justification for the special treatment of newspapers.” Ante, at 589-590 (footnotes omitted).
Considering the complexity of issues this Court resolves each Term, this admonition as a general rule is difficult to understand. Considering the specifics of this case, this confession of inability is incomprehensible.
Wisely not relying solely on its inability to weigh the burdens of the Minnesota tax scheme, the Court also says that even if the resultant burden on the press is lighter than on others
“the very selection of the press for special treatment threatens the press not only with the current differential treatment, but also with the possibility of subsequent differentially more burdensome treatment. Thus, even without actually imposing an extra burden on the press, the government might be able to achieve censorial effects, for ‘[t]he threat of sanctions may deter [the] exercise [of First Amendment rights] almost as potently as the actual application of sanctions.’” Ante, at 588.
Surely the Court does not mean what it seems to say. The Court should be well aware from its discussion of Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233 (1936), that this Court is quite capable of dealing with changes in state taxing laws which are intended to penalize newspapers. As Justice Holmes aptly put it: “[T]his Court which so often has defeated the attempt to tax in certain ways can defeat an attempt to discriminate or otherwise go too far without wholly abolishing the power to tax. The power to tax is not the power to destroy while this Court sits.” Panhandle Oil Co. v. Knox, 277 U. S. 218, 223 (1928) (dissenting opinion). Furthermore, the Court itself intimates that if the State had employed “the same method of taxation but applied a lower rate to the press, so that there could be no doubt that the legislature was not singling out the press to bear a more burden*602some tax” the taxing scheme would be constitutionally permissible. Ante, at 590, n. 13. This obviously has the same potential for “the threat of sanctions,” because the legislature could at any time raise the taxes to the higher rate. Likewise, the newspapers’ absolute exemption from the sales tax, which the Court acknowledges is used by many other States, would be subject to the same attack; the exemption could be taken away.
The State is required to show that its taxing scheme is rational. But in this case that showing can be made easily. The Court states that “[t]he court below speculated that the State might have been concerned that collection of a [sales] tax on such small transactions would be impractical.” Ante, at 587. But the Court finds this argument “unpersuasive,” because “sales of other low-priced goods” are subject to the sales tax. Ibid. I disagree. There must be few such inexpensive items sold in Minnesota in the volume of newspaper sales. Minneapolis Star & Tribune alone, as noted above, sold approximately 489,345 papers every weekday in 1974 and sold another 640,756 papers every Sunday. In 1975 it had a daily circulation of 481,789 and a Sunday circulation of 619,154. Further, newspapers are commonly sold in a different way than other goods. The legislature could have concluded that paperboys, corner newsstands, and vending machines provide an unreliable and unsuitable means for collection of a sales tax. Must everyone buying a paper put 260 in the vending machine rather than 250; or should the price of a paper be raised to 300, giving the paper 40 more profit; or should the price be kept at 250 with the paper absorbing the tax? In summary, so long as the State can find another way to collect revenue from the newspapers, imposing a sales tax on newspapers would be to no one’s advantage; not the newspaper and its distributors who would have to collect the tax, not the State who would have to enforce collection, and not the consumer who would have to pay for the paper in odd amounts. The reasonable alternative Minnesota chose was to impose the use tax on ink and paper. “There is no reason *603to believe that this legislative choice is insufficiently tailored to achieve the goal of raising revenue or that it burdens the first amendment in any way whatsoever.” 314 N. W. 2d, at 207. Cf. Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U. S. 456 (1981).
The Court finds in very summary fashion that the exemption newspapers receive for the first $100,000 of ink and paper used also violates the First Amendment because the result is that only a few of the newspapers actually pay a use tax. I cannot agree. As explained by the Minnesota Supreme Court, the exemption is in effect a $4,000 credit which benefits all newspapers. 314 N. W. 2d, at 203. Minneapolis Star & Tribune was benefited to the amount of $16,000 in the two years in question; $4,000 each year for its morning paper and $4,000 each year for its evening paper. Ibid. Absent any improper motive on the part of the Minnesota Legislature in drawing the limits of this exemption, it cannot be construed as violating the First Amendment. See Oklahoma Press Publishing Co. v. Walling, 327 U. S. 186, 194 (1946). Cf. Mabee v. White Plains Publishing Co., 327 U. S. 178 (1946). The Minnesota Supreme Court specifically found that the exemption was not a “deliberate and calculated device” designed with an illicit purpose. 314 N. W. 2d, at 208. There is nothing in the record which would cast doubt on this conclusion. The Minnesota court further explained:
“[I]t is necessary for the legislature to construct economically sound taxes in order to raise revenue. In order to do so, the legislature must classify or grant exemptions to insure that the burden upon the taxpayer in paying the tax or upon the state in collecting the tax does not outweigh the benefit of the revenues to the state. ‘Traditionally classification has been a device for fitting tax programs to local needs and usages in order to achieve an equitable distribution of the tax burden.’ Madden v. Kentucky, 309 U. S. 83, 88 (1940).” Id., at 209-210.
*604There is no reason to conclude that the State, in drafting the $4,000 credit, acted other than reasonably and rationally to fit its sales and use tax scheme to its own local needs and usages.
To collect from newspapers their fair share of taxes under the sales and use tax scheme and at the same time avoid abridging the freedoms of speech and press, the Court holds today that Minnesota must subject newspapers to millions of additional dollars in sales tax liability. Certainly this is a hollow victory for the newspapers, and I seriously doubt the Court’s conclusion that this result would have been intended by the “Framers of the First Amendment.”
For the reasons set forth above, I would affirm the judgment of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

The sales tax exemption and use tax liability are not, strictly speaking, for newspapers alone. The term of art used in the Minnesota taxing scheme is “publications.” Publications is defined to include such materials as magazines, advertising supplements, shoppers guides, house organs, trade and professional journals, and serially issued comic books. See Minn. Stat. § 331.02 (1982); 13 Minn. Code of Agency Rules, Tax S & U 409(b) (1979).