Cite as: 516 U. S. 325 (1996)
Opinion of the Court
treatment . . . that concerns the defendants is that the State taxes the property of domestic corporations and the stock of foreign ones in similar cases." Id., at 398. This arrangement, he concluded, "is consistent with substantial equality notwithstanding the technical differences." Ibid.9
Justice Holmes has been praised for the lucidity of his reasoning, as having been "wrong clearly" even where he erred, see Hart, Positivism and the Separation of Law and Morals, 71 Harv. L. Rev. 593 (1958), but the opinion in Darnell does not exemplify his customary merit. He gives no explanation for the conclusion quoted, commenting only that the discrimination issue "was decided in Kidd v. Alabama, 188 U. S. 730, 732 [(1903)]." 226 U. S., at 398. Kidd, however, was decided under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and emphasized "the large latitude allowed to the States for classification upon any reasonable basis." 188 U. S., at 733 (citations omitted). The exclusive reliance upon Kidd in Darnell thus indicates that the latter case should be viewed primarily as one of equal protection, despite the fact that Indiana's shareholder tax was challenged under both the Equal Protection and Commerce Clauses.
To the extent that Darnell evaluated a discriminatory state tax under the Equal Protection Clause, time simply has passed it by. While we continue to measure the equal protection of economic legislation by a "rational basis" test, see, e. g., FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc., 508 U. S. 307, 313 (1993), we now understand the dormant Commerce Clause to require "justifications for discriminatory restrictions on commerce [to] pass the 'strictest scrutiny.' " Oregon Waste, 511 U. S., at 101 (quoting Hughes v. Oklahoma, supra, at 337); see also Chemical Waste Management, Inc.
9 The Court did recognize as problematic the Indiana statute's failure to exempt shares of foreign corporations to the extent that those corporations owned, and were taxed upon, property within the State. Justice Holmes noted, however, that the petitioners lacked standing to raise that claim. 226 U. S., at 398.
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