January 15, 1999
The ACLU appeared before the United States Supreme Court, Wednesday, January 13, to present arguments in the case of Roe v. Anderson that a state law adopted at the urging of former Governor Pete Wilson which reduces welfare benefits for new residents of California is unconstitutional. The ACLUs of San Diego & Imperial Counties, Southern California, and Northern California, in coalition with NOW and the Western Center for Poverty and Law, seek to block California from using the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act —commonly called the Welfare Reform Law— to cut Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) benefits for new families by limiting public assistance for the first year to the amount of aid available in the state from which the families came. The ACLU will argue that the proposal poses an unconstitutional restriction on the right to travel and to equal protection under the law.
"In this country, citizens choose states, states don't choose citizens," says Jordan Budd, Managing Attorney of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties. "This plan penalizes new residents and reduces them to second class citizenship, even though they pay the same prices for groceries and rent as Californians who have lived here for twenty years."
If California is allowed to reduce benefits to new residents as proposed, a family of four from Mississippi, for example, would receive $144 a month, rather than Cali-fornia's allotment of $673. Forty states provide benefits lower than California's. Wilson's plan would place a particular burden on women fleeing domestic abuse, who are often forced to move across state lines in order to avoid stalking and violence. Such women often need public assistance to begin new lives for themselves and their children.
The Supreme Court will review a 1997 District Court ruling overturning the Wilson plan. That ruling was upheld by Ninth Circuit in January, 1998, in the first case in the nation to raise this issue under the new welfare law. The case is being closely watched by other states wishing to reduce benefits for newcomers whom they portray as motivated to relocate because of higher benefits in their states. The ACLU rejects the "welfare magnet" theory. "Welfare is not a get-rich-quick-scheme," says Budd, "especially in California, which has the fifth highest housing costs in the nation."
This is the second time that California has attempted to squeeze newcomers in this way. Former Governor Wilson first tried to cut the benefits of new arrivals with a waiver from the Bush Administration in 1992, a scheme the ACLU challenged in Green v. Anderson. The District Court declared that proposal unconstitutional in 1993 and the Ninth Circuit upheld the decision in 1994. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed California's appeal in February, 1997.
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