National League of Cities v. Usery (1976)

National League of Cities v. Usery (1976)

426 U.S. 833

In 1974, Congress amended the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 so as to extend the act’s minimum-wage and maximum-hours provisions to al. most all employees of states and their political subdivisions. The National League of Cities, along with the National Governors’ Conference nineteen states, and four cities, brought an action against Secretary of Labor William J. Usery in the District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging the validity of these 1974 amendments and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The three-judge court dismissed their complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Although they found the appellants’ contention that the amendments would intrude upon the states’ performance of essential governmental functions to be “substantial,” the judges felt obliged to adhere to Maryland v. Wirtz (1968), in which the Supreme Court had upheld an earlier amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act extending minimum-wage and maximum-hours coverage to nonprofessional and nonadministrative employees of state public schools, hospitals, and related institutions. The district court decision was appealed to the Supreme Court.

Opinion of the Court: Rehnquist, Blackmun, Burger, Powell, Stewart.

Concurring opinion: Blackmun.

Dissenting opinions: Brennan, Marshall, White; Stevens.

MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.

It is established beyond peradventure that the Commerce Clause of Art. I of the Constitution is a grant of plenary authority to Congress.

Congressional power over areas of private endeavor, even when its exercise may pre-empt express state law determinations contrary to the result which has commended itself to the collective wisdom of Congress, has been held to be limited only by the requirement that “the means chosen by [Congress] must be reasonably adapted to the end permitted by the Constitution.” Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States (1964).

Appellants in no way challenge these decisions establishing the breadth of authority granted Congress under the commerce power. Their contention, on the contrary, is that when Congress seeks to regulate directly the activities of States as public employers, it transgresses an affirmative limitation on the exercise of its power akin to other commerce power affirmative limitations contained in the Constitution. Congressional enactments which may be fully within the grant of legislative authority contained in the Commerce Clause may nonetheless be invalid because found to offend against the right to by jury contained in the Sixth Amendment or the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment Appellants’ essential contention is that the 1974 amendments to the Act, while undoubtedly within the scope of the Commerce Clause, encounter a similar constitutional barrier because they are to be applied directly to the States as employers.

This Court has never doubted that there are limits upon the power of Congress to override state sovereignty; even when exercising its otherwise plenary powers to tax or to regulate commerce which are conferred by Art. I of the Constitution. In Wirtz, for example, the Court took care to assure the appellants that it had “ample power to prevent…’the utter that destruction of the State as a sovereign political entity,’” which they feared. In Fry [v. United States (1975)], the Court recognized that an express declaration of this limitation is found in the Tenth Amendment: “While the Tenth Amendment has been characterized as a ‘truism,’ stating merely that ‘all is retained which has not been surrendered,’ United States v. Darby . . . (1941), it is not without significance. The Amendment expressly declares the constitutional policy that Congress may not exercise power in a fashion that impairs the States’ integrity or their ability to function effectively in a federal system. ….”

…The expressions in these more recent cases trace back to earlier decisions of this Court recognizing the essential role of the States in our federal system of government.

… It is one thing to recognize the authority of Congress to enact laws regulating individual businesses necessarily subject to the dual sovereignty of the government of the Nation and of the State in which they reside. It is quite another to uphold a similar exercise of congressional authority directed not to private citizens, but to the States as States. We have repeatedly recognized that there are attributes of sovereignty attaching to every state government which may not be impaired by Congress, not because Congress may lack an affirmative grant of legislative authority to reach the matter, but because the Constitution prohibits it from exercising the authority in that manner.

One undoubted attribute of state sovereignty is the States’ power to determine the wages which shall be paid to those whom they employ in order to carry out their governmental functions, what hours those persons will work, and what compensation will be provided where these employees may be called upon to work overtime. The question we must resolve in this case, then, is whether these determinations are “functions essential to separate and independent existence,” … so that Congress may not abrogate the States’ otherwise plenary authority to make them.

In their complaint appellants advanced estimates of substantial costs which will be imposed upon them by the 1974 amendments…

Judged solely in terms of increased costs in dollars, these allegations show a significant impact on the functioning of the governmental bodies involved. The Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tenn., for example, asserted that the Act will increase its costs of providing essential police and fire protection, without any increase in service or in current salary levels, by $938,000 per year….

The State of California, which must devote significant portions of its budget to fire suppression endeavors, estimated that application of the Act to its employment practices will necessitate an increase in its budget of between $8 million and $16 million.

Quite apart from the substantial costs imposed upon the States and their political subdivisions, the Act displaces state policies regarding the manner in which they will structure delivery of those governmental services which their citizens require. The Act, speaking directly to the States qua States, requires that they shall pay all but an extremely limited minority of their employees the minimum wage rates currently chosen by Congress . . . It cannot be gainsaid that the federal requirement directly supplants the considered policy choices of the States’ elected officials and administrators as to how they wish to structure pay scales in state employment. The State might wish to employ persons with little or no training, or those who wish to work on a casual basis, or those who for some other reason do not possess minimum employment requirements, and pay them less than the federally prescribed minimum wage. It may wish to offer part time or summer employment to teenagers at a figure less than the minimum wage, and if unable to do so may decline to offer such employment at all. But the Act would forbid such choices by the States. …

The degree to which the FLSA amendments would interfere with traditional aspects of state sovereignty can be seen even more clearly upon examining the overtime requirements of the Act…

The requirement imposing premium rates upon any employment in excess of what Congress has decided is appropriate for a governmental employee’s workweek, for example, appears likely to have the effect of coercing the States to structure work periods in some employment areas, such as police and fire protection, in a manner substantially different from practices which have long been commonly accepted among local governments of this Nation. In addition, appellee represents that the Act will require that the premium compensation for overtime worked must be paid in cash, rather than with compensatory time off, unless such compensatory time is taken in the same pay period. . . . This too appears likely to be highly disruptive of accepted employment practices in many governmental areas where the demand for a number of employees to perform important jobs for extended periods on short notice can be both unpredictable and critical. Another example of congressional choices displacing those of the States in the area of what are without doubt essential governmental decisions may be found in the practice of using volunteer firemen, a source of manpower crucial to many of our smaller towns’ existence. Under the regulations proposed by appellee, whether individuals are indeed “volunteers” rather than “employees” subject to the minimum wage provisions of the Act are questions to be decided in the courts…

Our examination of the effect of the 1974 amendments, as sought to be extended to the States and their political subdivisions, satisfies us that both the minimum wage and the maximum hour provisions will impermissibly interfere with the integral governmental functions of these bodies Their application will significantly alter or displace the States’ abilities to structure employer-employee relationships in such areas as fire prevention, police protection, sanitation, public health, and parks and recreation. These activities are typical of those performed by state and local governments in discharging their dual functions of administering the public law and furnishing public services.

 Indeed, it is functions such as these which governments are created to provide, services such as these which the States have traditionally afforded their citizens. If Congress may from the States the authority to make those fundamental employment decisions upon their systems for performance of these functions must rest, we think there would be little left the States’ “separate and independent existence.”… The dispositive factor is that Congress has attempted to exercise its Commerce Clause authority to prescribe minimum wages and maximum hours to be paid by the States their capacities as sovereign government. In so doing, Congress has sought to wield its power in a fashion that would impair the States’ “ability to function effectively within a federal system.”… This exercise of congressional authority does not comport with the federal system of government embodied in the Constitution. We hold that insofar as the challenged amendments operate to directly displace the States’ freedom to structure integral operations in areas of traditional governmental functions, they are not within the authority granted Congress by Art. I, 58, cl. 3….

One final matter requires our attention. Appellee has vigorously urged that we cannot, consistently with the Court’s decisions in Wirtz . . .and Fry . . . rule against him here…

With regard to Fry, we disagree with appellee. There the Court held that the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 was constitutional as applied to temporarily freeze the wages of state and local government employees…

We think our holding today quite consistent with Fry. The enactment at issue there was occasioned by an extremely serious problem which endangered the well-being of all the component parts of our federal system and which only collective action by the National Government might forestall. The means selected were carefully drafted so as not to interfere with the States’ freedom beyond a very limited, specific period of time. The effect of the acrossthe-board freeze authorized by that Act, moreover, displaced no state choices as to how governmental operations should be structured nor  did it force the States to remake such choices themselves… Finally, the Economic Stabilization Act operated to reduce the pressures upon state budgets rather than increase them. These factors distinguish the statute in Fry from the provisions at issue here. The limits imposed upon the commerce power when Congress seeks to apply it to the States are not so inflexible as to preclude temporary enactments tailored to combat a national emergency….

With respect to the Court’s decision in Wirtz, reach a different conclusion. . . . Wirtz relied heavily on the Court’s decision in United States v. California (1936). The opinion quotes the following language from that case: “[We] look to the activities to which the states have traditionally engaged as marking the boundary of the restriction upon the federal taxing power. But there is no such limitation upon the plenary power to regulate commerce. The State can no more deny the power if its exercise has been authorized by Congress than can an individual.”

But we have reaffirmed today that the States as States stand on a quite different footing than an individual or a corporation when challenging the exercise of Congress’ power to regulate commerce. We think the dicta from United States v. California simply wrong. Congress may not exercise that power so as to force directly upon the States its choices as to how essential decisions regarding the conduct of integral governmental functions are to be made. We agree that such assertions of power, if unchecked, would indeed, as Mr. Justice Douglas cautioned in his dissent in Wirtz, allow “the National Government [to] devour the essentials of state sovereignty,” . . . and would therefore transgress the bounds of the authority granted Congress under the Commerce Clause. . . . We are therefore persuaded that Wirtz must be overruled. The judgment of the District Court is accordingly reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

So ordered.

MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN, concurring.

I do not read the [Court’s] opinion so despairingly as does my Brother BRENNAN. In my view, the result with respect to the statute under challenge here is necessarily correct. I may misinterpret the Court’s opinion, but it seems to me that it adopts a balancing approach, and does not outlaw federal power in areas such as environmental protection, where the federal interest demonstrably greater and where state facility ^COmpliance with imposed federal standards would be essential. . . . With this understanding on my part of the Court’s opinion, I join it.

MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom MR. JUSTICE WHITE and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL join, dissenting.

…Only 34 years ago, Wickard v. Filburn, (1942), reaffirmed that “at the beginning Chief Justice Marshall . . . made emphatic the embracing and penetrating nature of [Congress’ commerce] power by warning that effective restraints on its exercise must proceed from political rather than from judicial processes.

My Brethren do not successfully obscure today’s patent usurpation of the role reserved for the political process by their purported discovery in the Constitution of a restraint derived from sovereignty of the States on Congress’ exercise of the commerce power. Chief Justice Marshall recognized that limitations “prescribed in the constitution,” restrain Congress’ exercise of the power. . . . Thus laws within the commerce power may not infringe individual liberties protected by the First Amendment, . . . the Fifth Amendment, . or the Sixth Amendment. . . But there is no restraint based on state sovereignty requiring or permitting judicial enforcement anywhere expressed in the Constitution; our decisions over the last century and a half have explicitly rejected the existence of any such restraint on the commerce power.

My Brethren thus have today manufactured an abstraction without substance, founded neither in the words of the Constitution nor on precedent. An abstraction having such profoundly pernicious consequences is not made less so by characterizing the 1974 amendments as legislation directed against the “States qua States.” . My Brethren make no claim that the 1974 amendments are not regulations of “commerce”; rather they overrule Wirtz in disagreement with historic principles that United States v. California . . . reaffirmed. . . . Clearly, therefore, my Brethren are also repudiating the long line of our precedents holding that a judicial finding that Congress has not unreasonably regulated a subject matter of “commerce” brings to an end the judicial role….

The reliance of my Brethren upon the Tenth Amendment as “an express declaration of [a state sovereignty) limitation,” . . . not only suggests that they overrule governing decisions of the Court that address this question but must astound scholars of the Constitution. For not only early decisions, Gibbons v. Ogden, …McCulloch v. Maryland, and Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee,….(1816), hold that nothing in the Tenth Amendment constitutes a limitation on congressional exercise of powers delegated by the Constitution to Congress. . . . Rather, as the Tenth Amendment’s significance was more recently summarized:

“The amendment states but a truism that all is retained which has not been surrendered. There is nothing in the history of its adoption to suggest that it was more than declaratory of the relationship between the national and state governments as it had been established by the Constitution before the amendment or that its purpose was other than to allay fears that the new national government might seek to exercise powers not granted, and that the states might not be able to exercise fully their reserved powers. . . .

“From the beginning and for many years the amendment has been construed as not depriving the national government of authority to resort to all means for the exercise of a granted power which are appropriate and plainly adapted to the permitted end.” United States v. Darby [1941]. (emphasis added). . . .

Today’s repudiation of this unbroken line of precedents that firmly reject my Brethren’s ill-conceived abstraction can only be regarded as a transparent cover for invalidating a congressional judgment with which they disagree. …

My Brethren do more than turn aside longstanding constitutional jurisprudence that emphatically rejects today’s conclusion. More alarming is the startling restructuring of our federal system, and the role they create therein for the federal judiciary. This Court is simply not at liberty to erect a mirror of its own conception of a desirable governmental structure. …

It is unacceptable that the judicial process should be thought superior to the political process in this area. Under the Constitution the judiciary has no role to play beyond finding that Congress has not made an unreasonable legislative judgment respecting what is “commerce.” My Brother BLACKMUN suggests that controlling judicial supervision of the relationship between the States and our National Government by use of a balancing approach diminishes the ominous implications of today’s decision. Such an approach, however, is a thinly veiled rationalization for judicial supervision of a policy judgment that our system of government reserves to Congress.

Judicial restraint in this area merely recognizes that the political branches of our Government are structured to protect the interests of the States, as well as the Nation as a whole, and that the States are fully able to protect their own interests in the premises. Congress is constituted of representatives in both Senate and House elected from the States. . . . Decisions upon the extent of federal intervention under the Commerce Clause into the affairs of the States are in that sense decisions of the States themselves. Judicial redistribution of powers granted the National Government by the terms of the Constitution violates the fundamental tenet of our federalism that the extent of federal intervention into the State’s affairs in the exercise of delegated powers shall be determined by the States’ exercise of political power through their representatives in Congress. …

We are left then with a catastrophic judicial body blow at Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause. Even if Congress may nevertheless accomplish its objectives—for example by conditioning grants of federal funds upon compliance with federal minimum wage and overtime standards,… there is an ominous portent of disruption of our constitutional structure implicit in today’s mischievous decision. I dissent.