214
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
indirectly involves or burdens interstate commerce. . . . These principles have guided judicial decision for more than a century." Id., at 351-352.
The Massachusetts subsidy under consideration is similar in many respects to the Pennsylvania statute described in Eisenberg, supra. Massachusetts taxes all dealers of milk within its borders. The tax is evenhanded on its face, i. e., it affects all dealers regardless of the point of origin of the milk. Ante, at 194 ("the tax also applies to milk produced in Massachusetts"); ante, at 200 ("the evenhanded tax at issue here"). The State has not acted to strong-arm sister States as in Limbach; rather, its motives are purely local. As the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts aptly described it: "[T]he premiums represent one of the costs of doing business in the Commonwealth, a cost all milk dealers must pay." West Lynn Creamery, Inc. v. Commissioner of Dept. of Food and Agriculture, 415 Mass. 8, 19, 611 N. E. 2d 239, 245 (1993).
Consistent with precedent, the Court observes: "A pure subsidy funded out of general revenue ordinarily imposes no burden on interstate commerce, but merely assists local business." Ante, at 199. And the Court correctly recognizes that "[n]ondiscriminatory measures, like the evenhanded tax at issue here, are generally upheld" due to the deference normally accorded to a State's political process in passing legislation in light of various competing interest groups. Ante, at 200, citing Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co., 449 U. S. 456, 473, n. 17 (1981), and Raymond Motor Transp., Inc. v. Rice, 434 U. S. 429, 444, n. 18 (1978). But the Court strikes down this method of state subsidization because the nondiscriminatory tax levied against all milk dealers is coupled with a subsidy to milk producers. Ante, at 200-201. The Court does this because of its view that the method of imposing the tax and subsidy distorts the State's political process: The dairy farmers, who would otherwise lobby against the tax, have been mollified by the subsidy. Ibid. But as the Court itself points out, there are still at least two
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