## Facts

- California enacted Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code § 11450.03 (1992), limiting maximum welfare benefits for otherwise eligible residents who had lived in California for less than 12 months to the benefit level of their prior state of residence.
- State officials characterized the measure as a budgetary response to welfare costs.
- Federal officials initially approved the program for federal reimbursement purposes, and the statute was challenged in federal court.
- In 1996, Congress enacted PRWORA, replacing AFDC with TANF and expressly permitting states receiving TANF funds to pay new residents the benefit amount of their prior state for up to 12 months.
- After California announced it would begin enforcing § 11450.03 in 1997, welfare recipients who had recently moved to California brought a class action challenging the state statute and the federal authorization.
- The district court issued a preliminary injunction against enforcement; the Ninth Circuit affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether California’s 12-month durational residency rule reducing welfare benefits for new residents violates the Fourteenth Amendment by infringing the constitutional right to travel.
2. Whether the relevant constitutional protection is grounded in the Privileges or Immunities Clause, Equal Protection principles, or both.
3. Whether Congress may authorize states to apply such durational residency-based benefit reductions through federal welfare legislation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment sustaining the preliminary injunction and resolved the merits.
- The Court held that § 11450.03 violates § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment because it discriminates against newly arrived residents in the distribution of welfare benefits.
- The Court treated the case as implicating the third component of the right to travel: the right of a new permanent resident to be treated like other citizens of the state.
- The Court grounded the protection primarily in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities Clause.
- The Court held that PRWORA’s authorization could not render California’s statute constitutional because Congress cannot permit states to violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Chief Justice Rehnquist (joined by Justice Thomas) dissented, objecting to the reliance on the Privileges or Immunities Clause and to invalidating California’s policy.
- Justice Thomas separately dissented, arguing the majority’s reading of the Privileges or Immunities Clause was historically unsound and risked expanding judicially enforceable rights beyond the clause’s original meaning.

## Legal Principles

- The constitutional right to travel includes the right of newly arrived citizens who become bona fide residents to the same privileges and immunities enjoyed by other citizens of the state.
- A state may not create durational residency classifications that reduce benefits for new residents who are otherwise eligible, because such discrimination penalizes interstate migration.
- Discrimination against new residents in allocating public benefits is subject to strict scrutiny; fiscal savings and deterrence of in-migration are not sufficient justifications.
- Congress may not authorize states to enact or enforce measures that violate the Fourteenth Amendment.

## Conclusion

California’s scheme tying a new resident’s welfare benefit level to the prior state’s benefit for the first year violated the Fourteenth Amendment right to travel, as protected by the Privileges or Immunities Clause, and federal statutory permission could not validate that unconstitutional discrimination.


Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999)