Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1969

Shapiro v. Thompson

394 U.S. 618 | 89 S. Ct. 1322 | 22 L. Ed. 2d 600 | 1969 U.S. LEXIS 3190

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Takeaway

In short, this case held that a State or the District of Columbia cannot deny otherwise eligible welfare benefits to new residents merely to deter indigent migration or reduce welfare costs, because the rule penalizes the fundamental right of interstate travel without a compelling justification.

Background

Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia denied otherwise eligible public-assistance applicants benefits because each applicant had lived in the jurisdiction for less than one year. The plaintiffs were needy mothers, children, and a disabled former District resident who met ordinary residency and financial-need requirements but failed the durational-residence condition. Several had moved to be near family or after personal hardship; none was denied for any reason other than the one-year waiting period.

Three-judge federal district courts in Connecticut, the District of Columbia, and Pennsylvania held the respective provisions unconstitutional. The state and District officials appealed. The Supreme Court consolidated the appeals and affirmed all three judgments.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether a State may deny otherwise eligible welfare benefits to residents solely because they have lived in the State for less than one year.

Holding

No. The Connecticut and Pennsylvania waiting-period requirements violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Reasoning

The laws created two classes of needy resident families that were alike in every relevant respect except duration of residence. Long-term residents received assistance necessary for food, shelter, and other essentials, while newer residents were denied it. Because the classification penalized persons for exercising the constitutional right to move interstate, it could survive only if necessary to promote a compelling governmental interest.

The States' principal objective—protecting welfare budgets by deterring poor persons who might need assistance from moving into the jurisdiction—was constitutionally impermissible. Interstate travel is a fundamental constitutional right, and a State may not pursue a policy of fencing out indigent newcomers. Nor could a State distinguish between people who moved generally and people who moved partly in hope of more generous benefits; the statutes broadly denied aid to all new residents and rested on an unsupported presumption about their motives.

A State's interest in preserving its fiscal resources did not justify discrimination between new and old residents. Although States may limit welfare spending, they may not save money through an otherwise invidious classification. The theory that longer-term residents had contributed more through taxes would also permit States to allocate schools, parks, police protection, and other public services according to past tax payments, a result inconsistent with equal protection.

The asserted administrative interests did not meet the compelling-interest standard. The record did not show that the one-year rule made welfare budgets predictable, and the jurisdictions did not collect the information necessary to use it for that purpose. Ordinary eligibility investigations could determine actual residence, and inquiries or communication with other welfare agencies could prevent duplicate payments without withholding all aid from new residents for a year. Encouraging employment also did not rationally justify imposing the restriction on newcomers but not on long-term residents.

Issue #2

Whether Congress's treatment of durational-residence requirements in the Social Security Act authorized or validated the state AFDC restrictions.

Holding

No. The federal statute did not require the one-year restrictions, and Congress could not authorize States to violate equal protection even if it had approved them.

Reasoning

Section 402(b) of the Social Security Act directed the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare not to approve a state AFDC plan containing a residence requirement longer than the specified maximum. On its face, that provision did not prescribe or affirmatively endorse a one-year waiting period; it merely limited the conditions under which federal officials could approve state plans.

The legislative history showed that Congress sought greater liberality, not stricter exclusion, in state residence rules. At the time of the Social Security Act, many States imposed substantially longer state, county, or municipal residence requirements. Congress used the federal funding condition to compel States to reduce those barriers.

In any event, the constitutional injury came from the state laws denying benefits to new residents. Congress cannot secure state participation in a joint federal-state program by authorizing state action that violates the Equal Protection Clause.

Issue #3

Whether the District of Columbia's one-year welfare waiting period was constitutional because it was enacted by Congress rather than a State.

Holding

No. The District provision violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Reasoning

Although the Fifth Amendment does not contain an Equal Protection Clause, its Due Process Clause prohibits unjustifiable discrimination by the federal government. The District's rule made the same unconstitutional distinction as the Connecticut and Pennsylvania laws: it denied otherwise eligible needy residents assistance solely because they had arrived less than a year earlier.

The reasons that made the state classifications invalid applied equally to Congress's enactment for the District. The rule burdened interstate movement without serving a compelling governmental interest, so the Fifth Amendment barred its enforcement.

Concurrences

Justice Stewart

Reasoning

Justice Stewart joined the Court's opinion but wrote to emphasize that the decision did not invent a new category of judicially protected “fundamental” activities. In his view, the Court simply enforced the already established constitutional right to travel from one State to another.

He treated interstate travel as a virtually unconditional personal right that exists independently of the Fourteenth Amendment and is broadly protected against both public and private interference. Because the welfare waiting periods clearly burdened that right, deterrence of poor migrants was necessarily illegitimate, and any other asserted justification had to be compelling.

Dissents

Chief Justice Warren

Reasoning

Chief Justice Warren, joined by Justice Black, read the Social Security Act differently from the majority. In his view, Congress deliberately permitted States to use residence requirements of up to one year as part of a cooperative federalism program designed to induce state participation and expansion of welfare assistance. Congress had chosen a middle position between lengthy residence barriers and the complete abolition of such requirements.

He concluded that Congress could impose or authorize these limited requirements under its Commerce Clause power. The burden on travel was indirect and uncertain: applicants remained free to move, and the only possible deterrent was the temporary loss of a particular welfare benefit. Congress could rationally conclude that limited residence rules would help States finance and improve welfare programs and ultimately serve national economic interests.

Chief Justice Warren rejected the majority's conclusion that the Fifth Amendment invalidated Congress's choice. He argued that courts should not substitute their judgment for Congress's policy judgment where Congress had acted rationally under an enumerated power. He also warned that the Court's rationale could threaten many other residence requirements, including requirements for voting, professional practice, and attendance at state-supported universities.

Justice Harlan

Reasoning

Justice Harlan objected to the Court's use of the compelling-governmental-interest test. In his view, the traditional rule was that a nonracial classification satisfies equal protection if it is rationally related to a legitimate governmental objective. He feared that treating every important interest or constitutional right as “fundamental” would turn the Equal Protection Clause into a license for courts to second-guess ordinary legislative policy.

He believed the appropriate constitutional inquiry was whether the residence requirements imposed an undue burden on interstate travel, a liberty protected against federal action by the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Because Congress had enacted the District rule and had authorized the state rules, he regarded the central question as whether Congress itself could constitutionally choose this policy.

Justice Harlan viewed the burden on travel as indirect and apparently slight. The rules did not prohibit movement; they required a prospective welfare recipient to account for the temporary unavailability of benefits after relocating. He also noted evidence suggesting that eliminating the requirements would produce only a small increase in welfare applicants, which in his view undermined the majority's conclusion that the rules substantially deterred migration.

He thought the laws rationally furthered several legitimate interests: discouraging people from moving primarily to collect benefits, preventing fraud and duplicate payments, improving budgetary planning, and limiting state-funded assistance to persons with a recent connection to the State's economy. Residence requirements also offered administrative simplicity and certainty that individualized investigations might not provide.

Balancing those interests against the limited effect on travel, Justice Harlan would have upheld the statutes. He stressed Congress's express involvement, the strong presumption of constitutionality for federal and federally authorized legislation, and the need to preserve legislative room for experimentation in welfare policy.