White, Mayor of Boston, et al. v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Employers, Inc., et al. (460 U.S. 204)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 28, 1983 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 460 U.S. 204 · 103 S. Ct. 1042
- Decided
- February 28, 1983
- Term
- October Term 1982
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Rehnquist
- Issue area
- Economic Activity
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court. In 1979 the Mayor of Boston, Mass., issued an executive order which required that all construction projects funded in whole or in part by city funds, or funds which the city had the authority to administer, should be performed by a work force consisting of at least half bona fide residents of Boston. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts decided that the order was unconstitutional, observing that the Commerce Clause “presents a clear obstacle to the city’s order.” 384 Mass. 466, 479, 426 N. E. 2d 346, 354 (1981). We granted certiorari to decide whether the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, Art. I, §8, cl. 3, prevents the city from giving effect to the Mayor’s order. 455 U. S. 919 (1982). We now conclude that it does not and reverse. We were first asked in Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U. S. 794 (1976), to decide whether state and local governments are restrained by the Commerce Clause when they seek to effect commercial transactions not as “regulators” but as “market participants.” In that case, the Maryland Legislature, in an attempt to encourage the recycling of abandoned automobiles, offered a bounty for every Maryland-titled automobile converted into scrap if the scrap processor supplied documentation of ownership. An amendment to the Maryland statute imposed more exacting documentation…
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