OCTOBER TERM, 1994
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the ninth circuit
No. 94-197. Argued January 17, 1995—Decided February 22, 1995
The Federal Government partially reimburses States for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) programs that either comply with all federal prescriptions or receive a waiver from the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Respondents, new residents of California, challenged the constitutionality of a California statute limiting new residents, for the first year they live in the State, to the benefits paid in the State from which they came; respondents maintain that the payment differential between new and long-term residents burdens interstate migration and thus violates the right to travel recognized in Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618. The District Court enjoined the payment differential, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
Held: No justiciable controversy is before this Court because the case in its current posture is not ripe. The state statute provides that the differential will not take effect absent an HHS waiver. The HHS waiver in effect at the time the lower courts ruled was vacated by the Court of Appeals in a separate proceeding. The Secretary did not seek this Court's review of that Court of Appeals decision. Absent a new HHS waiver, the State will continue to treat respondents the same way it treats long-term California residents. Thus, the parties have no live dispute now, and whether one will arise in the future is conjectural. This impediment to dispositive adjudication requires that the prior judgments in this case be vacated.
26 F. 3d 95, vacated and remanded.
Theodore Garelis, Deputy Attorney General of California, argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Daniel E. Lungren, Attorney General, Charlton G. Holland III, Assistant Attorney General, Dennis Eckhart, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, and Andrea Lynn Hoch, Deputy Attorney General.
557
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