Appellants, most of whom are interstate carriers and all of whom
are intrastate carriers in Illinois, challenged the
constitutionality of an Illinois law which imposes a tax for the
use of the public highways and measures the tax exclusively by the
gross weight of each vehicle. None of the appellants showed that
the tax bore no reasonable relation to the use he made of the
highways in his intrastate operations, or that the tax was
increased by reason of his interstate operations.
Held:
1. Appellants have failed to carry the burden of showing that
the tax deprives them of rights which the Commerce Clause protects.
Pp.
344 U. S.
584-585.
2. The tax does not violate the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment, though private carriers are taxed at the same
rate as carriers for hire. Pp.
344 U. S.
585-586.
3. Since no showing is made that any of the appellants is the
victim of an invidious classification, the statute does not violate
the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. P.
344 U. S.
586.
4. The fact that the statute requires Illinois residents to pay
the tax, whereas nonresidents are exempt if the states of their
residence reciprocate and grant like exemptions to Illinois
residents, does not violate the Compact Clause of Art. I, § 10 of
the Constitution. P.
344 U. S.
586.
412 Ill. 204,
106 N.E.2d
521, and
412 Ill. 321,
106 N.E.2d
510, affirmed.
The Supreme Court of Illinois sustained the constitutionality of
a state tax on trucks.
412 Ill. 204,
321, 106 N.E. 2 521, 510. On appeal to this Court,
affirmed, p.
344 U. S.
586.
Page 344 U. S. 584
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases challenge the constitutionality of §§ 9, 11a, and 20
of the Illinois Motor Vehicle Law, as amended. Ill.Rev.Stat. 1951,
c. 95 1/2. The statute imposes a tax for the use of the public
highways, and measures the tax exclusively by gross weight of the
vehicle. Appellants, most of whom are interstate carriers,
challenged the tax as violating the Commerce Clause, art. I, § 8,
of the Constitution and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. The Supreme Court of Illinois sustained the statute.
412 Ill. 204,
321,
106 N.E.2d
521, 510. The cases are here by appeal. 28 U.S.C. §
1257(2).
The main emphasis of the argument is on the Commerce Clause. The
argument starts from the premise, found in our opinions, that a
state may levy a tax on an interstate motor vehicle that is
"measured by or has some fair relationship to the use of the
highways for which the charge is made."
McCarroll v. Dixie
Greyhound Lines, 309 U. S. 176,
309 U. S. 181.
It is contended that the present tax is not so measured, but has
the same infirmities as the tax on motor vehicles which the Court
invalidated in
Interstate Transit, Inc. v. Lindsey,
283 U. S. 183. An
elaborate argument is advanced to the effect that a large fraction
of the costs of installing and maintaining highways has
Page 344 U. S. 585
no relation to the weight of the vehicles that pass over them.
Therefore, a tax such as this one, which is determined solely with
reference to weight, is a tax part of which is exacted for a
purpose other than the use of the highways.
We do not stop to analyze the evidence tendered by appellants.
For we do not reach the issue in this case. It is true that some of
the appellants are interstate carriers. But it is also true that
each of the interstate carriers does an intrastate business as
well. The tax is required from any motor vehicle that moves on the
highways. It is, indeed, a tax for the privilege of using the
highways of Illinois. Clearly it is within the police power of
Illinois to exact such a tax, at least from intrastate operators.
Hendrick v. Maryland, 235 U. S. 610. No
showing has been made by any of the appellants that the tax bears
no reasonable relation to the use he makes of the highways in his
intrastate operations. No effort is made to show that, in that way
or in some other manner, the tax is increased by reason of the
interstate operations of any appellant. In short, appellants have
failed to carry the burden of showing that the tax deprives them of
rights which the Commerce Clause protects.
Cf. Southern R. Co.
v. King, 217 U. S. 524,
217 U. S. 534.
The case is therefore to be distinguished from those situations
where by nature of the tax or its incidence,
Sprout v. South
Bend, 277 U. S. 163,
277 U. S.
170-171;
Spector Motor Service v. O'Connor,
340 U. S. 602,
340 U. S. 609,
an issue of unreasonable burden on interstate commerce is
presented.
The objections under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment are without substance. The power of a state to tax, basic
to its sovereignty, is limited only if, in substance and effect, it
is the exertion of a different and a forbidden power,
Magnano
Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U. S. 40,
292 U. S. 44,
as, for example, the taxation of a privilege protected by the First
Amendment.
See Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.
S. 105,
319 U. S. 112.
No such problem is
Page 344 U. S. 586
even remotely involved here. Complaint is made that private
carriers are taxed at the same rate as carriers for hire. Yet, so
far as the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, that objection is
frivolous, since neither private nor public carriers have the right
to use the highways without payment of a fee,
see Hendrick v.
Maryland, supra, and we cannot say that the exaction of the
same fee from each is out of bounds. Appellants make other
arguments to the effect that the statute is so inconsistent, vague,
and uncertain in its classification as to violate the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. But, even if we
assume that the vagaries of the law reach that dignity, no showing
is made that any of the appellants is the victim of an invidious
classification.
Cf. Stephenson v. Binford, 287 U.
S. 251,
287 U. S.
277.
We need notice only one other argument, and that is that the
statute requires Illinois residents to pay the tax, whereas
nonresidents are exempted provided the states of their residence
reciprocate and grant like exemptions to Illinois residents. That
objection, so far as the Fourteenth Amendment is concerned, was
adequately answered in
Storaasli v. Minnesota,
283 U. S. 57,
283 U. S. 62.
And, contrary to appellants' suggestions, that kind of reciprocal
arrangement between states has never been thought to violate the
Compact Clause of art. I, § 10 of the Constitution.
See St.
Louis & S.F. R. Co. v. James, 161 U.
S. 545,
161 U. S. 562;
Kane v. New Jersey, 242 U. S. 160,
242 U. S.
168.
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE BURTON concurs in the result.
MR. JUSTICE CLARK took no part in the consideration or decision
of these cases.
* Together with No. 274,
Co-Ordinated Transport, Inc., et
al. v. Barrett, Secretary of State, et al., argued January 5,
1953, on appeal from the same court.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, whom MR. JUSTICE JACKSON joins,
dissenting.
The problem of this case is not met by asserting that a tax
ranging as high as $1,580 per truck does not present
Page 344 U. S. 587
an issue under the Commerce Clause because the carriers do
intrastate, as well as interstate, business, and the tax therefore
does not, as a matter of law, affect commerce among the States.
(The Court apparently deems the size of the tax immaterial, since
it does not mention the amounts involved.) It has been suggested in
a cognate situation, though one involving a comparatively trifling
exaction, that interstate commerce is unconstitutionally burdened
solely because the taxpayer's interstate business increases the
number of trucks on which the tax is levied, and hence the total
amount due from him. One does not have to embrace this suggestion
to find the Court's position in this case unsupportable. For the
Court declares appellants' claim under the Commerce Clause baseless
although it does not "stop to analyze the evidence tendered by
appellants."
The Court disposes of the contention that the judgments below
offend the Commerce Clause by concluding that it need not "reach
the issue in this case." Its reasoning is as follows: all the
interstate carriers here are engaged in intrastate commerce as
well; were they not engaged in interstate commerce at all, they
could be taxed on account of their intrastate operations; since
none of the appellants thus pays an additional tax for its
interstate operations, none is in a position to claim the
protection of the Commerce Clause. Consideration of a challenge to
a tax under the Due Process Clause, which the Court does undertake
(reaching conclusions I agree with), does not, of course, bar
appellants from challenging the tax under the Commerce Clause.
Hence, the Court's refusal, on the ground that "it does not reach
the issue," "to analyze the evidence" on which the Commerce Clause
contention rests can only mean that the Court finds that appellants
had no standing to sue under the Commerce Clause, albeit the formal
phrase is withheld.
Page 344 U. S. 588
For this truly startling conclusion, we are vouchsafed no
authority except: "
Cf. Southern R. Co. v. King,
217 U. S. 524,
217 U. S.
534." On its facts, the
King case has nothing
whatever to do with the problem before us. The passage to which the
citation refers simply repeats the self-vident proposition that
only one whose alleged constitutional rights are affected by a
State statute can assail it. But whether appellants are so affected
is the very question at the threshold of the constitutional issue:
is the tax forbidden by the Commerce Clause. Being engaged in
interstate commerce, appellants invoke the Commerce Clause against
an Illinois statute which affects them because it taxes them.
Whether or not the effect on them is unconstitutional is the
question which, in compliance with settled procedural rules, they
have brought here on appeal.
If it is indeed true, as the Court holds, that one who is
engaged both in intrastate and interstate commerce has no standing
to challenge a tax such as this under the Commerce Clause because
the State might, perchance, extract the same dollars and cents from
him even if he engaged in intrastate commerce alone, then this
Court has long been entertaining, ignorantly and wastefully, cases
which it had no power to hear.
The taxation and licensing by the States of commingled, though
not necessarily inextricably commingled, intrastate and interstate
business, or of the instrumentalities of such commingled business,
have again and again been considered here to determine whether such
an assertion of the taxing power by the States had, in its
practical incidence, cast an inadmissible burden upon the
interstate aspect of the joint enterprise. Can it be that all these
cases could quickly and easily have been disposed of by suggesting
that the taxpayer could, in any event, have been taxed on his
intrastate operations?
Page 344 U. S. 589
As far back as 1888, in
Leloup v. Port of Mobile,
127 U. S. 640, the
Court struck down because of the Commerce Clause a tax attacked by
a taxpayer doing both intrastate and interstate business. In a
hundred-dd cases since, a claim under the Commerce Clause in
similar situations was considered. (This does not mean it always
prevailed.) Can it be that all our predecessors bothered their
heads needlessly? Indeed, ever since
Western Union Tel. Co. v.
Kansas, 216 U. S. 1, and
Pullman Co. v. Kansas, 216 U. S. 56, it
has been settled that a State may not exclude a foreign corporation
from doing merely local business if such exclusion would
"unreasonably burden" the nonexcludable interstate business. (I am
not now concerned with what is and what is not such an
"unreasonable burden.") Under today's holding, was there standing
in these cases?
A word on the merits. Of course, a State may tax for the use of
its roads by carriers engaged in interstate commerce, whether they
carry local goods as well or do an exclusive interstate business.
But this states the beginning of a problem in constitutional law;
it does not give the answer. The real question is how the State
makes the exaction -- that is, what is the nature of the exaction,
its basis, and its practical operation. As the Court does not reach
this question, it would serve no purpose for me to do so.