## Facts

- The Mayor of Boston issued an executive order requiring that construction projects funded in whole or in part by city funds, or by funds the city administered, use a workforce with at least 50% bona fide Boston residents.
- A construction employers’ association challenged the order, arguing it burdened interstate commerce by disadvantaging nonresident workers and firms.
- The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held the order violated the Commerce Clause as an impermissible burden on interstate commerce.
- The city sought review in the U.S. Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the dormant Commerce Clause bars a city from requiring that at least 50% of workers on city-funded (or city-administered) construction projects be city residents.
2. Whether the city acted as a market participant (outside dormant Commerce Clause limits) or as a market regulator when it imposed the residency condition in its public contracting.
3. Whether application of the requirement to projects partially funded by federal programs is permissible where federal statutes or regulations authorize local labor preferences.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed and remanded.
- For projects funded with the city’s own money, Boston acted as a market participant in the construction market and was not subject to dormant Commerce Clause restraints.
- The order’s practical effects on out-of-state firms and workers did not alter the threshold market-participant characterization.
- For projects partly financed with certain federal funds, the residency requirement was permitted by applicable federal program regulations; congressional authorization removed any dormant Commerce Clause objection.

## Legal Principles

- When a state or local government enters a market as a participant (e.g., spending its own funds in procurement), it is generally not constrained by dormant Commerce Clause limits applicable to market regulation.
- The magnitude of an in-state preference’s impact on out-of-state interests is assessed only if the government action is market regulation rather than market participation.
- If Congress affirmatively authorizes state or local restrictions affecting commerce through federal funding statutes or regulations, dormant Commerce Clause constraints do not apply to those authorized conditions.

## Conclusion

The Court held that Boston could impose a resident-hiring condition on city-funded construction contracts as a market participant, and that the same condition on certain federally assisted projects was valid because federal law authorized the preference, eliminating any dormant Commerce Clause barrier.


White v. Mass. Council of Constr. Emps., Inc., 460 U.S. 204 (1983)