Cite as: 526 U. S. 489 (1999)
Rehnquist, C. J., dissenting
fits to new citizens for a limited time impermissibly "penalized" them under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment for having exercised their right to travel. See Maricopa County, supra, at 257. The Court thus settled for deciding what restrictions amounted to "deprivations of very important benefits and rights" that operated to indirectly "penalize" the right to travel. See Attorney General of N. Y. v. Soto-Lopez, 476 U. S. 898, 907 (1986) (plurality opinion). In other cases, the Court recognized that laws dividing new and old residents had little to do with the right to travel and merely triggered an inquiry into whether the resulting classification rationally furthered a legitimate government purpose. See Zobel v. Williams, 457 U. S. 55, 60, n. 6 (1982); Hooper v. Bernalillo County Assessor, 472 U. S. 612, 618 (1985).2 While Zobel and Hooper reached the wrong result in my view, they at least put the Court on the proper track in identifying exactly what interests it was protecting; namely, the right of individuals not to be subject to unjustifiable classifications as opposed to infringements on the right to travel.
The Court today tries to clear much of the underbrush created by these prior right-to-travel cases, abandoning its effort to define what residence requirements deprive individuals of "important rights and benefits" or "penalize" the right to travel. See ante, at 504-507. Under its new analytical framework, a State, outside certain ill-defined circumstances, cannot classify its citizens by the length of their residence in the State without offending the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court thus departs from Shapiro and its progeny, and, while paying lipservice to the right to travel, the Court does
2 As Chief Justice Burger aptly stated in Zobel: "In reality, right to travel analysis refers to little more than a particular application of equal protection analysis. Right to travel cases have examined, in equal protection terms, state distinctions between newcomers and longer term residents." 457 U. S., at 60, n. 6.
515
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