496
Opinion of the Court
that that level was lower than California's.5 Moreover, the lower level of benefits applies regardless of whether the family was on welfare in the State of prior residence and regardless of the family's motive for moving to California. The instructions also explain that the residency requirement is inapplicable to families that recently arrived from another country.
II
On April 1, 1997, the two respondents filed this action in the Eastern District of California making essentially the same claims asserted by the plaintiffs in Anderson v. Green,6 but also challenging the constitutionality of PRWORA's approval of the durational residency requirement. As in Green, the District Court issued a temporary restraining order and certified the case as a class action.7 The court also advised the Attorney General of the United States that the constitutionality of a federal statute had been drawn into question, but she did not seek to intervene or to file an amicus brief. Reasoning that PRWORA permitted, but did not require, States to impose durational residency requirements, Judge Levi concluded that the existence of the federal statute did not affect the legal analysis in his prior opinion in Green.
He did, however, make certain additional comments on the parties' factual contentions. He noted that the State did not challenge plaintiffs' evidence indicating that, although
5 Record 30 (Plaintiffs' Exh. 3, Attachment 1).
6 One of the respondents is a former resident of Oklahoma and the other moved to California from the District of Columbia. In both of those jurisdictions the benefit levels are substantially lower than in California.
7 On the stipulation of the parties, the court certified a class of plaintiffs defined as " 'all present and future AFDC and TANF applicants and recipients who have applied or will apply for AFDC or TANF on or after April 1, 1997, and who will be denied full California AFDC or TANF benefits because they have not resided in California for twelve consecutive months immediately preceding their application for aid.' " App. to Pet. for Cert. 20.
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