In Saenz v. Roe, decided 7–2 in 1999, the Supreme Court struck down a California law that paid smaller welfare grants to families who had lived in the state for less than a year. Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, held that the Fourteenth Amendment protects a new resident’s right to be treated the same as everyone else who lives in the state, and grounded that right in the long-dormant Privileges or Immunities Clause.
The California Law at the Heart of the Case
The case grew out of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. That federal law authorized any state receiving a Temporary Assistance for Needy Families grant to apply the benefit rules of a new resident’s former state for up to twelve months after the move.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 604 – Use of Grants California accepted the invitation. Section 11450.03 of its welfare code capped benefits for newcomers at whatever amount their prior state would have paid.2Justia. Saenz v. Roe
The gaps were large. California’s monthly grant for a mother and one child was $456. Arizona paid $275 for the same family. A family of three moving from Louisiana would receive $190 a month instead of California’s $641, and a family arriving from Oklahoma would get $341 rather than $641.3Legal Information Institute. Saenz v. Roe The reduced payments hit families exactly when they were absorbing the cost of relocating to a state with a higher cost of living.
The Three Components of the Right to Travel
Justice Stevens organized the majority opinion around a framework that split the right to travel into three separate protections.4Library of Congress. Saenz v. Roe
The first is the right to enter and leave another state. No state can block its borders or penalize people for crossing them. The second protects people who are temporarily in a state, such as travelers passing through, from being treated as hostile outsiders. The third is the right of someone who moves to a new state to be treated equally with residents who have lived there longer.
The third component was the one that decided the case. California’s law treated a family that had been in the state for eleven months as a different class of resident from one that had been there for thirteen months, even though both were legal residents with the same needs. Thirty years earlier, in Shapiro v. Thompson, the Court had struck down state laws that denied welfare benefits outright to residents of less than a year.4Library of Congress. Saenz v. Roe Saenz extended that logic: a state cannot pay reduced benefits based on where a resident came from any more than it can deny benefits based on when they arrived.
Reviving the Privileges or Immunities Clause
The constitutional basis the majority chose is what gives Saenz significance beyond welfare law. Stevens grounded the right of new residents to equal treatment in the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, a provision that had been effectively dead in constitutional law for more than 125 years.
The clause had been read almost out of existence by the Supreme Court’s 1873 decision in the Slaughter-House Cases, which limited its reach to a narrow set of rights tied to federal citizenship. Constitutional scholars have described it as “a practical nullity” since then.5Congress.gov. Privileges or Immunities of Citizens and the Slaughter-House Cases
Stevens tied the clause to the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of the nation and of the state where they reside.6Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution Fourteenth Amendment There is no waiting period built into that language. State citizenship attaches the moment residency is established, and a law that sorts residents by how long they have lived somewhere creates tiers of citizenship the Fourteenth Amendment does not tolerate.
The Standard of Review and California’s Justifications
The Court did not tidily apply strict scrutiny, despite how the case is often described. Stevens said the standard was “surely no less strict” than the one the Court had used in Shapiro, and possibly “more categorical.”3Legal Information Institute. Saenz v. Roe The reasoning came closer to a flat prohibition than a balancing test. If the Citizenship Clause forbids degrees of citizenship, no state interest can justify creating them.
California argued that the law should be reviewed under rational basis and that saving $10.9 million a year was a legitimate reason for the policy. The Court accepted that the savings were real but found the argument unpersuasive. Spread across every TANF recipient in California, that same $10.9 million would have reduced each grant by about 72 cents a month, a figure Stevens called “minuscule.”3Legal Information Institute. Saenz v. Roe The savings were meaningful only because they fell entirely on the newest and poorest residents.
The Court also refused to accept discouraging migration as a legitimate state goal. Treating the desire to keep poor people out of the state as a lawful policy purpose, Stevens wrote, would defeat the very idea of national citizenship.4Library of Congress. Saenz v. Roe
The Dissents
Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas filed separate dissents.
Rehnquist argued that the Privileges or Immunities Clause should be “discarded as a valid textual basis for any fundamental right.” He noted that the clause had served as the basis for a Supreme Court decision only once before, and that decision had later been overruled.2Justia. Saenz v. Roe In his view, rational basis was the right standard, and California’s phase-in of benefits passed it.
Thomas dissented on originalist grounds. He argued the majority’s reading was “likely unintended when the Fourteenth Amendment was enacted and ratified.”7Legal Information Institute. Saenz v. Roe – Thomas Dissent Tracing the historical meaning of “privileges” and “immunities,” he concluded the clause was meant to protect a defined set of fundamental rights, and equal access to public benefits was not one of them.
What Saenz Means for Residency Requirements
The rule Saenz established is clear for welfare and similar needs-based programs: a state cannot pay newcomers less because they recently arrived. But not every durational residency requirement violates the right to travel. Courts have treated different requirements differently depending on what is at stake.8Congress.gov. Amdt14.S1.8.13.3 Residency Requirements and Interstate Travel
Struck down:
- One-year waiting periods before any welfare benefits can be received (Shapiro v. Thompson).
- Paying newcomers the benefit level of their former state (Saenz v. Roe).
- County residency requirements for non-emergency hospital care for low-income residents.
- Lengthy residency requirements before new residents can register to vote.
Upheld:
- A one-year residency requirement before filing for divorce.
- Roughly a year of residency before qualifying for in-state tuition at public universities.
- Multi-year residency requirements to run for elected office.
The rough dividing line: when a residency requirement denies or reduces something tied to basic needs or fundamental rights (food, shelter, medical care, voting), courts apply heavy scrutiny. When the requirement serves administrative or institutional purposes that do not penalize the decision to relocate, courts are far more forgiving. Professional licensing rules remain a gray area, with lower courts split.
One last piece of the picture: Congress never repealed the PRWORA provision at 42 U.S.C. § 604(c) that authorized states to cap newcomers’ benefits.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 604 – Use of Grants It remains on the books. Any state that tries to use it, though, will face an almost certain constitutional challenge, because Saenz made clear that federal permission cannot cure a Fourteenth Amendment violation.