Eloise Anderson, Director, California Department of Social Services, et al. v. Deshawn Green, Debby Venturella and Diana P. Bertollt, Etc. (513 U.S. 557)

U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 22, 1995 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)

Citation
513 U.S. 557 · 115 S. Ct. 1059
Decided
February 22, 1995
Term
October Term 1994
Vote
9–0
Issue area
Judicial Power
Disposition
Vacated and remanded
Outcome
Petitioning party lost
Ideological direction
Conservative

Opinion excerpt

Per Curiam. Under Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC), 49 Stat. 627, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 601 et seq., the Federal Government partially reimburses States for welfare programs that either comply with all federal prescriptions or receive a waiver from the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). 42 U. S. C. § 1315. California seeks to change its AFDC program by limiting new residents, for the first year they live in California, to the benefits paid in the State from which they came. See Cal. Welf. & Inst. Code Ann. §11450.03 (West Supp. 1994). Green and other new residents who receive AFDC benefits challenged the constitutionality of this California statute in a federal court action; they maintain that the payment differential between new and long-term residents burdens interstate migration and thus violates the right to travel recognized in Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618 (1969), and its progeny. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California enjoined the payment differential, 811 F. Supp. 516, 523 (1993), and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, 26 F. 3d 95 (1994). We granted California’s petition for certiorari. Post, p. 922. We now find, however, that no justiciable controversy is before us, because the case in its current posture is not ripe. The California statute provides that the payment…

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