noting limited application of general standard of intermediate scrutiny—subject legislative discrimination must be “substantially related to an important government interest”—applicable to Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claims not subject to strict scrutiny and variants of that standard applied to “limitations on the right to vote”—internal punctuation and citations omitted, emphasis added
How later courts described this case
- noting limited application of general standard of intermediate scrutiny—subject legislative discrimination must be “substantially related to an important government interest”—applicable to Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claims not subject to strict scrutiny and variants of that standard applied to “limitations on the right to vote”—internal punctuation and citations omitted, emphasis added
- requiring that subject legislative discrimination be “reasonable” and “more important than” the non-fundamental Montana constitutional right at issue
- holding that Montana's constitution does not create a right to welfare
- denying a right status as a “fundamental right” due to its omission from Article II
Written by the judges who cited it.
Later courts went against this
Superseded on other grounds by Zempel v. Uninsured Employers' Fund, 282 Mont. 424 (1997)
219 Mont. 426, 712 P.2d 1309 (1986), superseded on other grounds as recognized in Zempel v. Uninsured Employers’ Fund, 282 Mont. 424, 938 P.2d 658 (1997), and
The opinion
MR. JUSTICE SHEEHY,
specially concurring:
In addition to my concurrence with the majority opinion, I wish to state some observations.
For the purposes of this case, I am willing to concede that a fundamental right to welfare for the individuals affected does not exist. There is however a constitutionally-mandated duty upon the legislature to provide economic assistance “as may be necessary” for the misfortunate who need the aid of society. Art. XII, Section 3(3). When that duty is shirked by the legislature, upon whatever pretense, the class discriminated against has at least a constitutional right for redress in the courts. I am unable to distinguish the fine line between “fundamental right” for the discriminated class and the constitutional right for redress.
I do not wish to be bound by the statement in the majority opinion that fundamental rights under the Montana Constitution must be found within the Declaration of Rights, Art. II. The Article holds itself open to unenumerated rights which may not be denied to the people. Art. II, Section 34.