Cite as: 520 U. S. 564 (1997)
Scalia, J., dissenting
charities operated principally for the benefit of nonresidents is constitutional.1
III
I turn next to the validity of this focused tax exemption— applicable only to property used solely for charitable purposes by organizations devoted exclusively to charity—under the negative Commerce Clause principles discussed earlier. The Court readily concludes that, by limiting the class of eligible property to that which is used "principally for the benefit of persons who are Maine residents," the statute "facially discriminates" against interstate commerce. That seems to me not necessarily true. Disparate treatment constitutes discrimination only if the objects of the disparate treatment are, for the relevant purposes, similarly situated. See General Motors Corp. v. Tracy, 519 U. S. 278, 298-299
1 The Court protests that "there is no 'de minimis' defense to a charge of discriminatory taxation under the Commerce Clause," ante, at 581, n. 15—as though that were the point of our emphasizing in this Part II the narrowness of the challenged limitation. It is not. Rather, the point is (1) that Maine's limitation focuses upon a particular state interest that is deserving of exemption from negative Commerce Clause invalidation, and (2) that acknowledging the principle of such an exemption (as developed in Part III below) will not place the "national market" in any peril. What the Court should have gleaned from our discussion, it did not: It persists in misdescribing the exemption we defend as "a categorical exemption of nonprofit activities from dormant Commerce Clause scrutiny." Ante, at 588, n. 21; see also ante, at 591-592, n. 27.
The Court also makes an attempt to contest on the merits the narrowness of the exemption, suggesting a massive effect upon interstate commerce by reciting the multi-billion-dollar annual revenues of nonprofit nursing homes, child care centers, hospitals, and health maintenance organizations. See ante, at 586-587, n. 18. But of course most of the services provided by those institutions are provided locally, to local beneficiaries. (In that regard the summer camp that is the subject of the present suit is most atypical.) The record does not show the number of nonprofit nursing homes, child care centers, hospitals, and HMO's in Maine that have been denied the charitable exemption because their property is not used "principally for the benefit of persons who are Maine residents"; but it would be a good bet that the number is zero.
601
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