Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 520 U.S. 564, 39 (1997)

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602

CAMPS NEWFOUND/OWATONNA, INC. v. TOWN OF HARRISON

Scalia, J., dissenting

(1997). And for purposes of entitlement to a tax subsidy from the State, it is certainly reasonable to think that property gratuitously devoted to relieving the State of some of its welfare burden is not similarly situated to property used "principally for the benefit of persons who are not residents of [the State]," § 652(1)(A). As we have seen, the theory underlying the exemption is that it is a quid pro quo for uncompensated expenditures that lessen the State's burden of providing assistance to its residents.

The Court seeks to establish "facial discrimination" by showing that the effect of treating disparate property disparately is to produce higher costs for those users of the property who come from out of State. But that could be regarded as an indirect effect upon interstate commerce produced by a tax scheme that is not facially discriminatory, which means that the proper mode of analysis would be the more lenient "balancing" standard discussed above. We follow precisely this mode of analysis in Tracy, upholding an Ohio law that provides preferential tax treatment to domestic public utilities. Such entities, we conclude, are not "similarly situated" to other fuel distributors; their insulation from out-of-state competition does not violate the negative Commerce Clause because it "serves important interests in health and safety." 519 U. S., at 306. The Court in Tracy paints a compelling image of people shivering in their homes in the dead of winter without the assured service that competition-sheltered public utilities provide. See id., at 301-302, 306. No less important, however, is the availability of many of the benefits provided by Maine's private charities and facilitated not by total insulation from competition but by favorable tax treatment: care for the sick and dying, for example, or nursing services for the elderly.

Even if, however, the Maine statute displays "facial discrimination" against interstate commerce, that is not the end of the analysis. The most remarkable thing about today's judgment is that it is rendered without inquiry into whether the purposes of the tax exemption justify its favoritism.

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