Welfare

With the development of the welfare system, the courts have been called on to resolve disputes involving welfare recipients and government agencies. The most important case concerning the scope of welfare rights is Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 90 S. Ct. 1153, 25 L. Ed. 2d 491 (1970). In Dandridge, a California law set an upper limit on the amount of welfare benefits that a family could receive, preventing larger families from receiving the same amount per person as smaller families. Large-family recipients charged that the law violated the Social Security Act of 1935 and the EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT.

The Court ruled that the California law did not violate either. It stated that the act does not prohibit a state from "providing the largest families with somewhat less than their ascertained per capita standard of need," given the finite amount of resources a state has available. The Court also contended that states might reasonably theorize that large families are able take advantage of other types of assistance unavailable to smaller households. The Court ruled that the law did not violate the Equal Protection Clause because it was free from "invidious discrimination," and it reasonably worked to further the state's interest of "encouraging employment and in maintaining an equitable balance between welfare families and the families of the working poor."

An equally compelling welfare case was heard in the late 1990s. The Supreme Court, in Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489, 119 S.Ct. 1518, 143 L.Ed.2d 689 (1999), struck down a California law that limited new residents to the amount of welfare benefits they would have received in the state of their prior residence. The law was enacted in an attempt to discourage individuals from moving into the state in order to gain higher welfare benefits. California officials estimated that, each year, more than 50,000 people applying for benefits had lived in another state during the previous 12 months. Many of these individuals came from states that had much lower benefit levels. For example, a family of four who arrived from Mississippi would have received $144 in that state. In comparison, but for the one-year residency limitation, they would receive $673 in California.

In a previous case (Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 [1969]), the Court had struck down the laws of three states that denied all welfare benefits to persons who had resided in their states less than one year. In that case the Court ruled that it was "constitutionally impermissible" for a state to enact durational residency requirements that sought to inhibit the migration of needy persons into the state. These laws restricted a person's right to travel, which is protected under the Fourteenth Amendment. California argued that its law had not been enacted for the purpose of inhibiting the migration of poor people and that it merely reduced the level of benefits rather denying benefits.

The Supreme Court disagreed. It ruled that persons have a right to travel from state to state and that once a person decides to reside in a state he or she must be treated like all other citizens of that state. The Court concluded that "the state's legitimate interest in saving money provides no justification for its decision to discriminate among equally eligible citizens." Citizens, regardless of their incomes, have the right to choose to be citizens of the state in which they reside. The states, however, "do not have any right to select their citizens."

In an attempt to discourage welfare recipients from litigating the 1996 welfare reform law, Congress prohibited legal aid groups that receive federal money from taking such cases. The Supreme Court, in Legal Services Corporation v. Velazquez, 531 U.S. 533, 121 S.Ct. 1043, 149 L.Ed.2d 63 (2001), overturned this restriction as unconstitutional. The Court concluded that once Congress appropriated funds for providing legal assistance to private citizens, FIRST AMENDMENT rights were implicated. A federally-funded legal aid attorney "speaks on behalf of a private, indigent client in a welfare benefits claim, while the Government's message is delivered by the attorney defending the benefits decision." Therefore, the attorney's advice to the client and advocacy to the court was private speech that could not be restricted by the government.