Court Opinion

ID: 9603018
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 02:02:37.752725+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:07.958590
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Justice,
concurring.
Though I am in accord with the majority’s views regarding the nature of the Alaska Homestead Act1 as an appropriation which may not be enacted by the voters through the initiative process, I wish to add my separate views concerning appellees’ equal protection arguments.
The Alaska Homestead Act, popularly known as the Beirne Initiative, provides grants of forty acres of state land 2 to Alaska residents3 who have resided continuously in the state for three years preceding application for land. Residents of five years duration are eligible to receive two forty-acre grants, and a person who has resided continuously within the state for ten years is entitled to four forty-acre parcels. Regardless of the length of time of residency, the Homestead Act provides that an individual is entitled to not more than one grant of forty acres per year, and no person may accumulate more than 160 acres combined total under the act.
I have concluded that these durational residency provisions violate the equal protection clause of the Alaska Constitution4 by infringing on the right to travel to this state and make one’s home here. A review of the case law illustrates the important nature of the right to travel protected by the state constitution.
*10The protection extended by the Alaska Constitution to new residents of Alaska differs markedly from the level of protection afforded by the United States Constitution to new residents of a state against discriminatory treatment based solely on the duration of residency.5 In the past, this court consistently has subjected durational residency restrictions to strict scrutiny under the equal protection clause of the Alaska Constitution. This intensified review was premised on our conclusion that “the right to interstate travel is itself a fundamental right and any classification which serves to penalize the exercise of that right must be subjected to strict judicial scrutiny.” 6
State v. Van Dort, 502 P.2d 453 (Alaska 1972), was the first case to challenge a durational residency requirement under Alaska law. In Van Dort we considered a seventy-five-day residency requirement for voting in state elections and found it to be unconstitutional. We stated there:
It is our reading of [Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 92 S.Ct. 995, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972),] that all durational residency requirements are prima facie invalid as in contravention of the equal protection clause because they penalize the right to travel and the right to vote in elections on an equal basis with other citizens in the jurisdiction.
Id. at 454. The state’s argument that a seventy-five-day residency requirement for voting was justified by the compelling interest in guaranteeing that only bona fide residents participated in the election was rejected. Even recognizing Alaska’s uniqueness in size, population and geography, its special economic, cultural and social problems, and the communication deficiencies between different parts of the state, we found that a less restrictive alternative was available to accomplish the state’s objectives in administering proper elections. Thus, a thirty-day residency requirement expressly was approved in Van Dort; however, the seventy-five-day period challenged in the case was struck down since that particular classification served no compelling state interest.
In State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142 (Alaska 1973), we struck down certain state personnel regulations which gave an absolute hiring preference for state employment to per*11sons who had resided in Alaska for at least one year.7 We held in Wylie that the right of interstate travel is itself a fundamental right under the state constitution and that any classification which serves to penalize the exercise of that right must be subjected to strict scrutiny. At the time, this holding was based in part on our reading of the United States Supreme Court’s opinion in Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 338, 92 S.Ct. 995, 1001, 31 L.Ed.2d 274, 282 (1972), in which the Court had expressed its similar view that the right to travel was a “fundamental personal right.” However, Wylie established that aside from its status under the federal Constitution, the Alaska Constitution unambiguously protects the right of interstate migration as a fundamental interest such that strict judicial scrutiny must be applied to any burden on the exercise of that right.
Wylie significantly expanded the United States Supreme Court’s prior applications of the “penalty” concept to measures interfering with the fundamental right of interstate migration by holding that any differential treatment based on length of residency would be viewed as a penalty in light of the fundamental nature of the right of migration guaranteed by the Alaska Constitution. In Wylie, we held that state personnel rules which granted hiring preferences to persons who have satisfied the durational residency requirement penalized interstate travel. In contrast, though the precise limits of penalty analysis under the United States Constitution had not been explored fully at the time this court decided Wylie, the United States Supreme Court subsequently declined to classify as a penalty on the right to travel any burden other than the denial of basic necessities of life. See Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U.S. 250, 94 S.Ct. 1076, 39 L.Ed.2d 306 (1974).8
In State v. Adams, 522 P.2d 1125 (Alaska 1974), we again differed from the United States Supreme Court’s analysis of penalties on the right of interstate migration in holding that Alaska’s one-year durational residency requirement for the initiation of divorce proceedings in state courts violated the equal protection clause of the Alaska Constitution. We reiterated in Adams:
All durational residency requirements inherently infringe upon the fundamental constitutional right of interstate travel. *12Hence, all such requirements are prima facie invalid and will be countenanced only when they serve a compelling state interest. There need be no actual deterrence to interstate migration to actuate strict scrutiny under the compelling state interest test. In our view, the nature of the benefit withheld by the state is relevant only to judging the relative importance of the competing state interest, not to determining the applicable standard of judicial review.
Applying strict scrutiny to the state’s asserted public goals justifying the classification based on duration of residency, we found that the relationship between the goals and the means selected for furthering the objectives (the durational residency requirement) was substantially lacking. We held that the state’s important interest in protecting the integrity of the basic family unit simply was not furthered by the differential treatment of new residents since it did nothing to preserve marriages of persons who had been in the state for more than one year. The state’s interest in assuring the validity of its divorce decrees against collateral attacks on due process grounds, while substantial, could be satisfied by insuring that the domicile of the divorce-complainant was in this state. This reasonable, less restrictive alternative to the absolute requirement of residence of one year in the challenged divorce statute rendered the more restrictive standard less than compelling. The durational residency requirement thus failed to withstand strict scrutiny and was struck down.9
Following Adams, we decided the only Alaska right to travel case which has upheld a durational residency requirement in the face of strict judicial scrutiny of equal protection claims. Gilbert v. State, 526 P.2d 1131 (Alaska 1974), involved a challenge to the state constitutional requirement, article II, § 2, of three-year residency in the state and one-year residency in the election district for eligibility to seek legislative office. The residency requirement was analyzed only under the equal protection clause of the federal Constitution since a provision of the Alaska Constitution was directly attacked by the appellant in the case. Nevertheless, we determined to apply the strict scrutiny tier of review based in part on our own prior cases relating to durational residency requirements. Two of the state’s asserted justifications for the restrictions on candidacy for public office were found to be compelling: the interest of the state in assuring that those who govern it are acquainted with the diverse conditions, problems, and needs of those who are to be governed, and the interest of the electors in exposure of the potential candidate to the people during a period of time sufficient for the voters to become familiar with the candidate’s knowledge, character, and reputation. In upholding the classification, we found that no viable less restrictive alternatives to the durational residency requirements imposed by the state constitution existed to fulfill the compelling state interests.
This court’s most recent statement of the law relating to durational residency requirements was in Hicklin v. Orbeck, 565 P.2d 159 (Alaska 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978). Hicklin involved an *13equal protection challenge to the so-called “Alaska Hire” law which limited eligibility for petroleum and pipeline related jobs to residents of the state who had been physically present in Alaska, with certain exceptions, for one year.10 In holding that the proper standard for review of the durational residency preference in hiring was the strict scrutiny tier of equal protection analysis which applies to such residency requirements “because they penalize those who have exercised their fundamental right of interstate migration,” 11 we expressly considered and rejected the “basic necessities” reasoning of Memorial Hospital v. Maricopa County, 415 U.S. 250, 94 S.Ct. 1076, 39 L.Ed.2d 306 (1974). As already noted, Memorial Hospital had addressed a challenge under the federal Constitution and had limited application of strict scrutiny to dura-tional residency cases in which the residency requirement penalized the right to travel by depriving the recent migrant of a basic necessity of life.12 We noted that “[w]e have never used this ‘basic necessity’ reasoning,” 13 and proceeded to subject the Alaska Hire law to strict scrutiny. The interests which the state sought to further through the hiring preference for one-year residents of the state in Hicklin were the reduction of the unemployment rate for bona fide Alaska residents and the cultivation of Alaska’s human resources through extraction of the state’s natural resources. We invalidated the durational residency requirements because the correlation between the classification based on length of residence and the goals of the challenged statute was tenuous and, in any case, the dura-tional residency requirement was not the least drastic means available for accomplishing the public goals of reduced unemployment and stabilization of the economy.14
In my view, under the test applied in Hicklin v. Orbeck, 565 P.2d 159 (Alaska 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978), the three-year durational residency requirement imposed by the Beirne Initiative to qualify for land grants would fail. The general standard for judicial review of equal protection challenges arising under the state constitution was modified subsequent to the Hicklin decision, however. In State v. Erickson, 574 P.2d 1 (Alaska 1978), we abandoned the traditional two-tier approach to equal protection analysis which *14had been followed in all our prior cases 15 and adopted a new single test for evaluating equal protection claims under the Alaska Constitution. The new standard of review was explained in Erickson as follows:
Such a test will be flexible and dependent upon the importance of the rights involved. Based on the nature of the right, a greater or lesser burden will be placed on the state to show that the classification has a fair and substantial relation to a legitimate governmental objective. Where fundamental rights or suspect categories are involved, the results of this test will be essentially the same as requiring a ‘compelling state interest’; but, by avoiding outright categorization of fundamental and non-fundamental rights, a more flexible, less result-oriented analysis may be made.
Id. at 12. Our task in applying the equal protection test adopted in Erickson has three steps: first, we must ascertain what the purposes of the challenged legislation are and whether they are within the legitimate police power of the state; second, we must examine the means used to accomplish the legislative objectives and establish whether the means substantially further the legislative goals; and third, we must balance the importance of the state’s interest in the means actually chosen to accomplish the legislative purpose against the nature of the constitutional right which has been infringed.16
The Erickson analysis begins by considering the purposes of the challenged act, viewing the Beirne Initiative as a whole as well as the circumstances which surrounded its enactment. Since the act was passed as an initiative by the people rather than by the legislature there is no relevant legislative history of its passage to resort to. However, the Beirne Initiative makes its objectives clear in the statement of purpose which constitutes section 1 of the Homestead Act.17 The purpose of the act, quite simply, is to accomplish the transfer of thirty percent or 30,000,000 acres of the state’s vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved general grant lands into private ownership. The initiative finds that “individual land ownership is integral to the material well-being of the people and encourages more citizen awareness and involvement in the *15affairs of the state.” It further finds that the state unduly has delayed making public land available for private settlement and development purposes and enacts the grant program to facilitate the distribution of state land into private ownership.
The mechanism chosen for the transfer of land is a land grant initiated by filing an application which must have been recorded previously in the recording district where the land is located, together with proof of residency as required by the act and a $100 filing fee. The applicant is required to publish notice of his application and to provide a land survey within five years after the right to possession attaches. The grantee is required only to hold the land grant for one year before he “may extract timber or materials on a commercial basis, sell, subdivide, or otherwise dispose of the land . . . .” There is no requirement that the grantee actually enter upon the land and make improvements.18
Only persons who meet the minimum residency requirements of the Beirne Initiative may apply for grants of state land. A three-year resident is eligible for one forty-acre grant, a five-year resident may apply for two such grants, and a ten-year resident is eligible for a maximum of four forty-acre grants of state land under the act.19 The justifications advanced by the state in support of this differential treatment based on duration of residency are basically twofold. First, it is asserted that the durational residency requirements insure that the recipients of benefits under the Beirne Initiative have earned the right to grants of state land based on their contribution to the overall state welfare by voting and paying taxes for the required periods of time. Second, it is claimed that the durational residency requirements insure that the recipients of land grants are genuinely attached to the state since they already have demonstrated their willingness to remain in Alaska for a substantial period of time.
Judicial scrutiny of the closeness of fit between the means and permissible legislative objectives, and scrutiny of the relative necessity for utilizing the particular means selected as opposed to other means less restrictive of constitutional rights, vary in intensity with the character of the classification in question under State v. Erickson, 574 P.2d 1 (Alaska 1978). At the upper end of this flexible equal protection formula, where fundamental rights or suspect categories are involved, Erickson indicates that the results of this new test will be essentially the same as under the traditional strict scrutiny tier of equal protection doctrine which requires a “compelling state interest” in the means chosen. At the lower end of the scale, the intensity of scrutiny applied will be governed by the new, more demanding “rational basis” test articulated in Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359 (Alaska 1976). In Isakson we held:
Under the rational basis test, in order for a classification to survive judicial scrutiny, the classification ‘must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons simi*16larly circumstanced shall be treated alike.’20
Isakson also concluded that “we will no longer hypothesize facts which would sustain otherwise questionable legislation as was the case under the traditional rational basis standard.”21
The present challenge to the constitutionality of the durational residency requirements in the Beirne Initiative is the first post-Erickson case to come before this court on right-to-travel grounds. Thus, an important inquiry in this case is the determination of what standard of review should be applied. Our cases on this subject uniformly have expressed our opinion that the right of interstate migration is a fundamental constitutional guarantee which may not be infringed without showing a compelling state interest in retaining any durational residency requirement and the absence of less restrictive alternative means of accomplishing the state’s legislative objectives. The uniquely important status of right-to-travel protection in the Alaska Constitution reflects, in part, an awareness of the distinctive character of this state in attracting many new residents to participate in Alaska’s growth and expansion.22 The risk that longer-term Alaska residents would seek to insulate themselves from sharing the public benefits of development of the state with the influx of relative newcomers already has been confronted directly in Hicklin v. Orbeck, 565 P.2d 159 (Alaska 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978). Significantly, this court in Hicklin stood fast in expressly repudiating the United States Supreme Court’s “basic necessities” limitation on applying strict scrutiny to right-to-travel cases and clearly stated that “it can no longer be disputed that [the right to travel into a different state and make one’s home there] is a fundamental right calling for strict scrutiny.” 23 In light of the consistent pronouncements by this court concerning the fundamental nature of the right to travel under our state constitution in prior cases, I believe there is a strong case presented in favor of continuing to apply the most stringent standard of review to durational residency classifications under the new, flexible equal protection test adopted in State v. Erickson, 574 P.2d 1 (Alaska 1978). However, even starting from the premise that the least intensive scrutiny available under Erickson applies, I do not think that the classification of Alaska residents into four groups of dissimilarly treated individuals based on duration of residency24 for purposes of disbursing *17grants of state land is “reasonable, not arbitrary” and “ ‘rest[s] upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced [are] treated alike.’ ”25
The first rationale advanced for upholding the durational residency requirements of the Beirne Initiative is that they constitute a reasonable device for excluding from the benefits of the land grants those persons who have not made a substantial contribution to the state’s economy and general welfare. The state cites Starns v. Malkerson, 326 F.Supp. 234 (D.Minn.1970), aff’d, 401 U.S. 985, 91 S.Ct. 1231, 28 L.Ed.2d 527 (1971), in support of its argument on this point. Starns upheld the University of Minnesota’s regulation creating an irrebut-table presumption that any person who had resided in the state for less than one year was a non-resident and could not qualify for a reduced resident tuition rate at the state university. The rationale advanced in Starns was that the one-year waiting period for reduced tuition was an attempt to achieve partial cost equalization between those who had and those who had not contributed to the state’s economy through employment, tax payments and expenditures within the state. The federal district court explained its holding as follows:
We believe that the State of Minnesota has the right to say that those new residents of the State shall make some contribution, tangible or intangible, towards the State’s welfare for a period of twelve months before becoming entitled to enjoy the same privileges as long-term residents possess to attend the University at a reduced resident’s fee.
Id. at 241. Assuming that the Alaska Supreme Court would uphold a similar one-year residency requirement for reduced tuition in this state’s university system, a premise that is not altogether inevitable under the new, “more demanding” rational basis test adopted in Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359, 362 (Alaska 1976), substantial differences remain between the holding in the Starns case and the durational residency requirements of the Beirne Initiative.
A requirement of contribution through domicile in the state which funds an institution of higher education primarily out of tax revenues bears a relatively direct relationship to the rationale of cost equalization. The current residents of the state presumably carry the primary burden for providing the educational service and it is rational (under the deferential lower tier of federal equal protection scrutiny, at least) to require the new resident to pay more for a limited period of time to attend the state university in order to approximate the greater overall cost borne by the longer term resident for access to the same educational opportunity. In contrast, the distribution of land mandated by the Beirne Initiative constitutes the disposal of a permanent state asset the acquisition of which was unrelated to contributions of taxes and earnings by even the longest-term residents of Alaska. Of course, aside from the specif - *18ic funding sources of the state benefit in question, it is arguable that the longer-term resident has contributed more to the general welfare of the state over the course of his domicile in the state. However, in my view the asserted correlation between the contribution of the land grantee to the state’s economy and the varying periods of residency required to become eligible for each incremental forty-acre grant of land under the Beirne Initiative is on its face too tenuous to satisfy the standard of review adopted in State v. Erickson, 574 P.2d 1 (Alaska 1978). The parties to this action have made available no additional data supporting this rationale. Therefore, this court is left in the position of hypothesizing facts to sustain the classification on cost-equalization grounds, an exercise we expressly declined to undertake in Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359, 362 (Alaska 1976). Further, if eligibility for land grants validly may be conditioned on participation in the state’s economy for such extended periods of time as the initiative requires, the state apparently would not be prohibited from distributing all of its public benefits (other than those protected by federal equal protection guarantees) proportionately to the length of continued residence in the state. I think that, upon careful evaluation, it becomes clear that the cost-equalization rationale advanced in this case in support of the dura-tional residency requirements accomplishes nothing more than the sanctioning of a bonus or reward for having been a resident of Alaska longer than certain other classes of persons. It would do violence to the meaning of the requirement in Isakson v. Rickey, id. at 362 (Alaska 1976), that the classification “ ‘must be reasonable, not arbitrary, and must rest upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation’ ” if this court were to uphold the durational residency requirements of the Beirne Initiative on a cost-equalization rationale.
The second justification for the Beirne Initiative’s durational residency requirements advanced by the state is that they insure that state land grants made available by the act actually end up in the hands of those who have demonstrated their genuine attachment to the state and their willingness to remain in Alaska and adapt to its uniquely rigorous climate and frontier characteristics. I do not think this rationale is supported by the express provisions of the Beirne Initiative. Despite its title,26 the act is not a homestead law in the sense that the grantee must undertake to make improvements on the grant land or even to live on the land. In fact, under the terms of the initiative, a land grant applicant need not ever even visit the land acquired and can sell the land or otherwise dispose of it after holding it for one year. This scheme of land disposal may adequately serve the initiative’s purpose of transferring state land to private ownership, but it certainly does not require that the land is ultimately developed by those with any degree of attachment to the State of Alaska or that people with experience in “Alaskan living” utilize the land. The three-year durational residency requirement adds nothing to the assurance of these objectives.
Further, residence of three years duration is not reasonably required to insure that only actual residents receive grant lands. Whether or not the state has a justifiable concern that state land be distributed to bona fide residents of Alaska to the exclusion of non-resident applicants,27 requiring a minimum of three years actual domicile to establish bona fide residence status in this state simply bears no substantial relationship to the asserted purpose of the requirement. The Beirne Initiative itself includes other less onerous indicia of *19resident status which easily may be used to distinguish the resident from the non-resident.28
Given that the three-year durational residency requirement is not substantially related to the purpose of insuring that only bona fide residents with significant ties to the state receive the grant land, the five-year and ten-year requirements are even less relevant to this objective of the act. As stated before, the only conceivable relationship between the duration of residency in the case and the disposal of the state grant land is the notion that long-term Alaska residents deserve a reward for their continued residence. In my opinion, this connection does not meet the “fair and substantial relation” equal protection test of Isakson.29

. The Alaska Homestead Act, AS 38.05.410-540, created a new Article 13 of the Alaska Land Act, AS 38.05, entitled Homestead Grants of State Land.

. AS 38.05.410 provides that “[a]ll vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved general grant land” is to remain classified and available as homestead entry land until thirty percent or 30,000,000 acres (whichever comes first) of the state general grant land (excluding trust land) has passed into private ownership under the terms of the Homestead Act.

. A resident is defined by AS 38.05.530(4) as a person who is at least eighteen years of age and
(A)except for brief intervals, military service, attendance at an educational or training institution, or for absences for good cause, is physically present in the state for the required period;
(B) maintains a place of residence in the state;
(C) has established residence for voting purposes in the state and is a registered voter;
(D) has not, within the period of required residency, claimed residency in another state; and
(E) shows by all attending circumstances that his intent is to make Alaska his permanent residence.

.Art. I, § 1, of the Alaska Constitution states:
Inherent Rights. This constitution is dedicated to the principles that all persons have a natural right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the enjoyment of the rewards of their own industry; that all persons are equal and entitled to equal rights, opportunities, and protection under the law; and that all persons have corresponding obligations to the people and to the State.
Additionally, art. VIII, § 17 provides specifically with regard to disposition of the state’s natural resources:
Uniform Application. Laws and regulations governing the use or disposal of natural resources shall apply equally to all persons similarly situated with reference to the subject matter and purpose to be served by the law or regulation.

. Under the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation, the federal constitutional right to travel is not by itself a fundamental right which triggers application of the strict scrutiny tier of equal protection analysis. The rational basis standard applies to review of durational residency requirements unless, in addition, the discriminatory treatment of new residents either deters or penalizes the federal right of interstate migration. Memorial Hosp. v. Maricopa County, 415 U.S. 250, 94 S.Ct. 1076, 39 L.Ed.2d 306 (1974). See also Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 95 S.Ct. 553, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975); Starns v. Malkerson, 326 F.Supp. 234 (D.Minn.1970), aff'd, 401 U.S. 985, 91 S.Ct. 1231, 28 L.Ed.2d 527 (1971). Deterrence of the right of interstate migration apparently never has been used by the Supreme Court as a ground for applying strict scrutiny (see Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 655, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 1342, 22 L.Ed.2d 600, 626 (1969) (Harlan, J., dissenting)), and the existence of a penalty on the exercise of the right requires a showing of the denial of a basic necessity of life or the denial of a separately protected fundamental right other than the right to travel. Memorial Hosp. v. Maricopa County, 415 U.S. 250, 94 S.Ct. 1076, 39 L.Ed.2d 306 (1974).

. State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142, 147 (Alaska 1973). The constitutional right to travel interstate has not been identified with any particular textual source in the Alaska Constitution. Rather, the Alaska Supreme Court appears to be in agreement with Mr. Justice Stewart’s discussion of the federal right to travel in United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745, 757-58, 86 S.Ct. 1170, 1178, 16 L.Ed.2d 239, 249 (1966) (footnote omitted):
The constitutional right to travel from one State to another . occupies a position fundamental to the concept of our Federal Union. It is a right that has been firmly established and repeatedly recognized. . [The] right finds no explicit mention in the Constitution. The reason, it has been suggested, is that a right so elementary was conceived from the beginning to be a necessary concomitant of the stronger Union the Constitution created. In any event, freedom to travel throughout the United States has long been recognized as a basic right under the Constitution.
Id. quoted in State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142, 145 n.5 (Alaska 1973). See also Hicklin v. Orbeck, 565 P.2d 159, 163 n.5 (Alaska 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978).

. At the time State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142 (Alaska 1973), was decided, the United States Supreme Court had decided two durational residency cases utilizing strict scrutiny review: Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969), which invalidated a one-year durational residency requirement of the State of Connecticut for eligibility for aid to families with dependent children welfare assistance; and Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 92 S.Ct. 995, 31 L.Ed.2d 274 (1972), which struck down Tennessee’s one-year durational residency requirement for eligibility to vote in state elections. See also Starns v. Malkerson, 326 F.Supp. 234 (D.Minn.1970), aff’d, 401 U.S. 985, 91 S.Ct. 1231, 28 L.Ed.2d 527 (1971) (upholding on rational basis grounds Minnesota’s one-year durational residency requirement for reduced tuition at the state university).

. When we applied the strict scrutiny tier of equal protection judicial review in State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142 (Alaska 1973), the state’s interests in upgrading Alaska’s human resources, in reducing the level of unemployment within the state and in relieving the burden imposed by unemployment on the public purse were found not to be related sufficiently to the means selected for accomplishing the objec-fives (/. e., discrimination against new residents in hiring) to satisfy the compelling state interest standard of review. We concluded that “[tjhere are certainly available to the state other means for lowering unemployment which impose a lesser burden on the constitutionally protected right to interstate travel.” Id. at 149 (footnote omitted). We also held that the state’s interest in preferring bona fide residents over non-residents in selecting public employees in order to improve the efficiency of state government by reducing personnel turnover was not substantial enough to warrant burdening the fundamental right of interstate travel.
It should be noted that in Wylie, as in the present case involving the Beirne Initiative, the state’s interest in preferring bona fide residents over non-residents was not challenged. Thus, the court made no determination as to the permissibility of such a classification; it ruled only on the constitutionality of discriminating between classes of actual residents based on an irrebuttable presumption that those who had lived in Alaska for less than one year should not be treated as permanent residents regardless of other indicia of intent to establish permanent residence in the state.

. Subsequent to our invalidation of the one-year residency requirement in the state divorce statute, the United States Supreme Court addressed the identical issue in a case involving the State of Iowa’s statutory requirement that a petitioner in a divorce action must be a resident of the state for one year preceding the filing of the petition. Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 95 S.Ct. 553, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975). The Supreme Court came to the opposite conclusion from our court in Sosna, however. Although the Court did not specifically identify the standard of review it was applying in upholding the durational residency requirement, its analysis was couched in language suggesting application of the rational basis test. It found that the statute in question reasonably furthered three basic public purposes: protection of the rights of the defendant spouse in the divorce proceeding, avoidance of interference in matters in which another state has a paramount interest, and assurance that the state’s own divorce decrees will be afforded full faith and credit by other states. It should be noted that the third of these rationales is identical to the state interest this court had found unpersuasive in State v. Adams, 522 P.2d 1125 (Alaska 1974).

. The durational residency statute at issue in Hicklin v. Orbeck, 565 P.2d 159 (Alaska 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978), was nearly identical to the Beirne Initiative’s residency requirements. AS 38.40.090(1) provided:
‘resident’ means a person who
(A) except for brief intervals, military service, attendance at an educational or training institution, or for absences for good cause, is physically present in the state for a period of one year immediately before the time his status is determined;
(B) maintains a place of residence in the state;
(C) has established residency for voting purposes in the state;
(D) has not, within the period of required residency, claimed residency in another state; and
(E) shows by all attending circumstances that his intent is to make Alaska his permanent residence.
The only differences between the statutory definition of an Alaska resident which was considered in the Hicklin case and the definition of resident in the Beirne Initiative are found in the duration of the residency required (one year in the Hicklin case and a minimum of three years in the present case), and in the addition of registered voter status and the attainment of eighteen years of age as requirements for eligibility for land grants under the Beirne Initiative. See note 3 supra.

. Hicklin v. Orbeck, 565 P.2d 159, 162 (Alaska 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978) (footnote omitted).

. In Hicklin, id. we also rejected the rational basis test as applied in Sosna v. Iowa, 419 U.S. 393, 95 S.Ct. 553, 42 L.Ed.2d 532 (1975). See discussion of Sosna in note 9, supra.

. Hicklin v. Orbeck, 565 P.2d 159, 163 (Alaska 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978).

. It was pointed out in Hicklin, id. at 165, that “the least drastic, and also the most effective, means to help the unemployed and recent trainees to find jobs is to give an employment preference only to the unemployed and recent trainees.”

. We had previously expressed our increasing dissatisfaction with traditional equal protection analysis, however, in Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359, 362-63 (Alaska 1976); Lynden Transport, Inc. v. State, 532 P.2d 700, 706-07 (Alaska 1975); State v. Adams, 522 P.2d 1125, 1127 n.12 (Alaska 1974); State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142, 145 n.4 (Alaska 1973). See generally T. Yarbrough, The Burger Court and Unspecified Rights: On Protecting Fundamental and Not-So-Fundamental “Rights” or' “Interests” Through a Flexible Conception of Equal Protection, Duke L.J. 143 (1977); G. Gunther, Foreword: In Search of Evolving Doctrine on a Changing Court: A Model for a Newer Equal Protection, 86 Harv.L.Rev. 1 (1972).

. See Erickson v. State, 574 P.2d 1, 12 (Alaska 1978). See also Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 508, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1173, 25 L.Ed.2d 491, 515 (1970) (Marshall, J., dissenting).

. Section 1 of the Beirne Initiative provides: The people find that only approximately one million acres of the 363 million total land acreage of Alaska is in private ownership on the effective date of this Act. The people further find that individual land ownership is integral to the material well-being of the people and encourages more citizen awareness and involvement in the affairs of the state. Further, the people are cognizant that all land was privately owned at the time of the nation’s founding and [believe] that private land ownership is integral to the American system. In addition, the people are aware that the Constitution of the State of Alaska declares that it is the policy of the state to encourage the settlement of its land and the development of its resources by making them available for maximum use consistent with the public interest (art. VIII, sec. 1), and further that the constitution permits the people to implement this policy by providing for the grant of state land (art. VIII, sec. 9). The people find that of the approximately 104 million acres to which the state is entitled under the Statehood Act, less than 75,000 acres have been made available by the state to citizens for settlement and development purposes, and that the failure to make more land available is a failure [to] implement the policy of art. VIII, sec. 1 of the Alaska Constitution. The people declare their purpose to make available to its citizens at least 30 percent or 30,000,000 acres of state land for settlement and development, and further [declare] that a policy of private land ownership is in the best interest of the people of the state.

. The Beirne Initiative has been titled the “Alaska Homestead Act” and the state land made available under the act is referred to as “homestead entry land,” but this description of the act’s purposes is somewhat inaccurate. Although the act does open up state land for transfer to private ownership and, presumably, at least some of that land will actually be settled, the Beirne Initiative contains no requirement that the grantee enter upon the land and live there in the traditional mode of homestead acts. See generally 43 U.S.C. §§ 161-302 (repealed by Pub.L. 94-579, 90 Stat. 2787, effective October 21, 1976). In fact, the initiative explicitly provides that “no improvements may be required or restrictions imposed on homestead entry land, except as required by general law or home rule municipalities.” See AS 38.-08.060.

. It should be noted that the act limits the size of the yearly grant to forty acres regardless of the duration of residency; thus, five-year and ten-year state residents may accumulate their total grant land only at the rate of forty acres a year until their respective máximums are reached.

. Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359, 362 (Alaska 1976), quoting State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142, 145 (Alaska 1973) (footnote omitted).

. Id. Isakson continued, quoting G. Gunther, Foreword: In Search of Evolving Doctrine on a Changing Court: A Model for a Newer Equal Protection, 86 Harv.L.Rev. at 20 (1972):
Judicial deference to a broad range of conceivable legislative purposes and to imaginable facts that might justify classifications is strikingly diminished. Judicial tolerance of ovednclusive and underinclusive classifications is notably reduced. Legislative leeway for unexplained pragmatic experimentation is substantially narrowed.
See also State v. Lewis, 559 P.2d 630, 643 (Alaska 1977), cert. denied, 432 U.S. 901, 97 S.Ct. 2943, 53 L.Ed.2d 1073, which applies the Isakson “rational basis” standard of review.

. See Note, Durational Residency Requirements: The Alaskan Experience, 6 U.C.L.A.— Alaska L.Rev. 50 (1976).

. Hicklin v. Orbeck, 565 P.2d 159, 163 n.5 (Alaska 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978) (citations omitted).
In Hicklin, we also quoted art. VIII, § 2 of the Alaska Constitution which reads:
The legislature shall provide for the utilization, development, and conservation of all natural resources belonging to the State, including land and waters, for the maximum benefit of its people, [emphasis added]
We concluded that “[this] section is not limited to those of Alaska’s people who have been here for at least twelve months.” Id. at 164 n.8.

.The four classes of residents created by the Beirne Initiative are (1) those persons who have lived in Alaska for less than three years and who qualify for no state land; (2) those persons who have lived in Alaska for more than three years but less than five years and thereby qualify for one grant of forty acres of land; (3) persons who have resided in the state for more than five years but less than ten years, thus qualifying for two forty-acre grants of state land totalling eighty acres altogether; and (4) residents of ten years or longer who are *17eligible to receive four grants of forty acres each, or a total of 160 acres of state land.

. Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359, 362 (Alaska 1976), quoting State v. Wylie, 516 P.2d 142, 145 (Alaska 1973). It should be noted here that the general equal protection guarantee in article I, § 1 of the Alaska Constitution is not the only constitutional equal protection clause applicable in the present case. Article VIII of the state constitution relating to natural resources contains a separate guarantee:
Laws and regulations governing the use or disposal of natural resources shall apply equally to all persons similarly situated with reference to the subject matter and purpose to be served by the law or regulation.
Alaska Const, art. VIII, § 17. Inclusion in the state constitution of this separate equal protection guarantee relating specifically to the disposal of natural resources evidences the constitutional framers’ particular concern that the benefits from development of Alaska’s large store of natural resources be shared by all persons similarly situated with respect to those resources and the purposes to be served by their disposal. This express indication of the importance attached to the interests of the people in the state’s resources is thus an independent reason for rigorous scrutiny under Erickson of classifications differentiating between groups of residents where the distribution of natural resources is at stake. State v. Erickson, 574 P.2d 1, 12 (Alaska 1978).

. See note 18 supra.

. See generally Baldwin v. Fish & Game Comm’n, 436 U.S. 371, 98 S.Ct. 1852, 56 L.Ed.2d 354 (1978), which upheld large disparities in hunting license fees between residents of Montana and non-resident recreational hunters. But see Hicklin v. Orbeck, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978), invalidating the “Alaska Hire” law’s statutory preference for hiring of state residents for pipeline and other petroleum industry jobs.

. The initiative’s other requirements of residency are set out in note 3 supra. Similar indicia of residency were approved in Hicklin v. Orbeck, 565 P.2d 159, 169-70 (Alaska 1977), rev’d on other grounds, 437 U.S. 518, 98 S.Ct. 2482, 57 L.Ed.2d 397 (1978) (The United States Supreme Court invalidated the residency requirement portion of the “Alaska Hire” law but did not express its opinion on the appropriateness of the criteria employed to establish residence in a case where such a classification is proper.).
Though my disposition of this case on dura-tional residency grounds makes it unnecessary for me to examine the validity of the remainder of the residency classification, I question particularly the requirement that a resident be a registered voter to qualify for a grant of land under the act. Resident aliens, who are not eligible to register to vote, would be excluded from the Beirne Initiative’s land distribution scheme if this requirement were enforced. See Nyquist v. Mauclet, 432 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2120, 53 L.Ed.2d 63 (1977); Sugarman v. Dougall, 413 U.S. 634, 93 S.Ct. 2842, 37 L.Ed.2d 853 (1973); Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 91 S.Ct. 1848, 29 L.Ed.2d 534 (1971); Takahashi v. Fish & Game Comm’n, 334 U.S. 410, 68 S.Ct. 1138, 92 L.Ed. 1478 (1948); Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633, 68 S.Ct. 269, 92 L.Ed. 249 (1948); C. D. R. Enterprises, Ltd. v. Board of Educ., 412 F.Supp. 1164 (E.D.N.Y.1976), aff’d, 429 U.S. 1031, 97 S.Ct. 721, 50 L.Ed.2d 742 (1977), all of which invalidate state discriminatory treatment of resident aliens. See also Foley v. Connelie, 435 U.S. 291, 98 S.Ct. 1067, 55 L.Ed.2d 287 (1978).

. This test was also applied in: State v. Erickson, 574 P.2d 1 (Alaska 1978); State v. Lewis, 559 P.2d 630 (Alaska 1977), cert. denied, 432 U.S. 901, 97 S.Ct. 2943, 53 L.Ed.2d 1073.