Fourteenth Amendment
As mentioned, the Bill of Rights applies to state governments through the Fourteenth Amendment. The Fourteenth Amendment also contains the Equal Protection Clause, which provides that: “No state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”[1] This clause is mainly directed at protecting specific groups of people from unequal treatment and ensuring that the government does not deprive people of their fundamental rights (e.g., the right to vote). If a law burdens a fundamental right or creates a “suspect classification” by singling out people based on a protected characteristic such as race, the law will be subject to strict or intermediate scrutiny depending on the type of equal protection violation. This does not mean, however, that the government must treat everyone exactly the same. Rather, the government must treat like cases alike and may treat unlike cases differently.[2] For example, the government may quarantine all persons suspected of contracting a disease, but not quarantine other persons, or provide benefits to all persons at a specified poverty level, but not to those with higher incomes.
If a law does not violate these principles, it will be subject to rational basis review. For example, the Minnesota legislature enacted a law banning the retail sale of milk in plastic nonreturnable, nonrefillable containers, but permitted the sale of milk in paperboard cartons.[3] The purpose of the law was to address environmental and solid waste disposal problems that the legislature found stemmed from the plastic, as opposed to the cardboard, containers. Businesses impacted by the law sued the state to prevent enforcement of the restriction and the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court analyzed whether the state’s proffered reasons “supporting the classification between plastic and nonplastic nonreturnables is rationally related to the articulated statutory purposes” to determine whether the law violated the Equal Protection Clause.[4] The Court found that the state’s rationale was rationally related to the classifications and sustained the law. Thus, the state government must have a valid purpose to enact a law.
Questions for Classroom Discussion
When the restaurant association sued New York City to prevent enforcement of the nation’s first menu-labeling law, it argued that the ordinance was preempted by the federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act and that it violated the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Explain these arguments.
Explain why and when the federal government might be a better entity than state governments to regulate in the name of public health.
Explain why and when state governments might be the better entities than the federal government to regulate in the name of public health.
Why are factual disclosure requirements on food products necessary to protect the public’s health and safety? Could you argue that they also prevent deception?
Sugary beverage manufacturers often argue that it is unfair to single out sugary beverages for public health regulation. Do you think they have a viable claim that this violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution?
