32
Stevens, J., dissenting
State's jurisdiction against intentional and arbitrary discrimination, whether occasioned by express terms of a statute or by its improper execution through duly constituted agents." Sunday Lake Iron Co. v. Township of Wakefield, 247 U. S. 350, 352-353 (1918) (emphasis added). If anything, the inequality created by Proposition 13 is constitutionally more problematic because it is the product of a statewide policy rather than the result of an individual assessor's mal-administration.
Nor can Allegheny Pittsburgh be distinguished because West Virginia law established a market-value assessment regime. Webster County's scheme was constitutionally invalid not because it was a departure from state law, but because it involved the relative " 'systematic undervaluation . . . [of] property in the same class' " (as that class was defined by state law). Allegheny Pittsburgh, 488 U. S., at 345 (emphasis added). Our decisions have established that the Equal Protection Clause is offended as much by the arbitrary delineation of classes of property (as in this case) as by the arbitrary treatment of properties within the same class (as in Allegheny Pittsburgh). See Brown-Forman Co. v. Kentucky, 217 U. S. 563, 573 (1910); Cumberland Coal Co. v. Board of Revision of Tax Assessments of Greene County, 284 U. S. 23, 28-30 (1931). Thus, if our unanimous holding in Allegheny Pittsburgh was sound—and I remain convinced that it was—it follows inexorably that Proposition 13, like Webster County's assessment scheme, violates the Equal Protection Clause. Indeed, in my opinion, statewide discrimination is far more invidious than a local aberration that creates a tax disparity.
The States, of course, have broad power to classify property in their taxing schemes and if the "classification is neither capricious nor arbitrary, and rests upon some reasonable consideration of difference or policy, there is no denial of the equal protection of the law." Brown-Forman Co. v. Kentucky, 217 U. S., at 573. As we stated in Allegheny Pitts-
Page: Index Previous 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007