🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <7tlvds$t97$1@agate-ether.berkeley.edu>,
Jeff Bishop <jwbishop@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>In article <7tlugm$1ih$1@ultra.sonic.net>,
>David Hatunen <hatunen@bolt.sonic.net> wrote:
>
>>It's not a fine.
>
>That's a matter of semantics.  "Import duty" is the most accurate
>term, but of course they won't use it since they would have to
>admit they were violating the constitution.

We don't really know that yet; there's a whole fedearl judicairy to
go through here. Many such cases that have gone one way at a state
appeals level have been reversed as the case moved higher..
Personally, I don't think they are violating the constitution..
States have always been allowed a certain latitude in imposing
restrictions on interstate commerce to implement certain police
powers. The history of constitutional law has a long list of such
cases over the centuries deciding whether this or that restriction
is proper, and many have been. You are, of course, free to
disagree; that's why they ahve court cases.

>>And it doesn't allow exemptions for specific cars. It's
>>general thing, and assumes, I would suppose, that in general cars
>>will have lower emissions as a group if the equipment were present.
>
>It has nothing to do with reducing emissions.  It's a tax on
>foreign cars, nothing more and nothing less.  If they were really
>concerned about emissions from foreign cars, they'd either
>prohibit the cars outright or impose a prohibitively high tax on
>their import.  Charging $300 deters no one; it merely taxes out of
>state goods unfairly.

Perhaps. I do knwo people who have sold their out-of-state cars
before moving to California. I dumped my 1971 VW van before I moved
here in 1985.

>>I'm not defending the fee. 
>
>It sure sounds like it.

Then you don't understand what I'm trying to say here.

>>I had to pay it myself when I moved here. 
>
>So?

I didn't like it.

>>But if you don't like it you have to take it up with either the
>>state legislature or wait for the current litigation to run its
>>entire course. My own guess is that the state supremes will
>>uphold the law requiring opponents to take it into the federal
>>judicial system. My other guess is that the US Supremes will
>>decide it's the sort of thing that's best left for the states.
>
>Anyone can guess anything they want, but the whole idea behind the
>commerce clause is that ensuring the free flow of goods across
>state lines is one of the few things that cannot be entrusted to
>the states.  If slapping a phony environmental label on every
>protectionist policy was all it took to get around the commerce
>clause, the clause would have no force at all.

As I said, there have been a number of such restrictions on
interstate commerce that have been upheld. California's border
inspections being an example.

>As an aside, your second guess presupposes that your first is
>right.  If the state supremes uphold the ruling in its present
>form, it will not be appealable to the U.S. Supremes as it will
>rest on an independent state ground.

Only if the grounds was the state constitution. Was it?

-- 
    ********** DAVE HATUNEN (hatunen@sonic.net) ***********
    *                Daly City California                 *
    ******* My typos are intentional copyright traps ******