SOUTH DAKOTA v. DOLE, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION
483 U.S. 203 (1987)
CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner South Dakota permits persons 19 years of age or older to
purchase beer containing up to 3.2% alcohol. S. D. In 1984 Congress
enacted 23 U. S. C. § 158 which directs the Secretary of
Transportation to withhold a percentage of federal highway funds
otherwise allocable from States "in which the purchase or public
possession . . . of any alcoholic beverage by a person who is less than
twenty-one years of age is lawful." The State sued in United States
District Court seeking a declaratory judgment that § 158 violates
the constitutional limitations on congressional exercise of the
spending power and violates the Twenty-first Amendment to the United
States Constitution. The District Court rejected the State's
claims, and the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed.
In this Court, the parties direct most of their efforts to defining the
proper scope of the Twenty-first Amendment Despite the extended
treatment of the question by the parties, however, we need not decide
in this case whether that Amendment would prohibit an attempt by
Congress to legislate directly a national minimum drinking age. Here,
Congress has acted indirectly under its spending power to encourage
uniformity in the States' drinking ages. As we explain below, we
find this legislative effort within constitutional bounds even if
Congress may not regulate drinking ages directly.
The Constitution empowers Congress to "lay and collect Taxes, Duties,
Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common
Defence and general Welfare of the United States." Art. I, § 8,
cl. 1. Incident to this power, Congress may attach conditions on
the receipt of federal funds, and has repeatedly employed the power "to
further broad policy objectives by conditioning receipt of federal
moneys upon compliance by the recipient with federal statutory and
administrative directives." The breadth of this power was made clear in
United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 66 (1936), where the Court,
resolving a longstanding debate over the scope of the Spending Clause,
determined that "the power of Congress to authorize expenditure of
public moneys for public purposes is not limited by the direct grants
of legislative power found in the Constitution." Thus, objectives not
thought to be within Article I's "enumerated legislative fields" may
nevertheless be attained through the use of the spending power and the
conditional grant of federal funds.
The spending power is of course not unlimited, Pennhurst State School
and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1, 17, and n. 13 (1981), but is
instead subject to several general restrictions articulated in our
cases. The first of these limitations is derived from the
language of the Constitution itself: the exercise of the spending power
must be in pursuit of "the general welfare." In considering whether a
particular expenditure is intended to serve general public purposes,
courts should defer substantially to the judgment of Congress.
Second, we have required that if Congress desires to condition the
States' receipt of federal funds, it "must do so unambiguously . . . ,
enabl[ing] the States to exercise their choice knowingly, cognizant of
the consequences of their participation." Third, our cases have
suggested (without significant elaboration) that conditions on federal
grants might be illegitimate if they are unrelated "to the federal
interest in particular national projects or programs." ("The Federal
Government may establish and impose reasonable conditions relevant to
federal interest in the project and to the over-all objectives
thereof"). Finally, we have noted that other constitutional
provisions may provide an independent bar to the conditional grant of
federal funds.
South Dakota does not seriously claim that § 158 is inconsistent
with any of the first three restrictions mentioned above. We can
readily conclude that the provision is designed to serve the general
welfare, especially in light of the fact that "the concept of welfare
or the opposite is shaped by Congress . . . ." Congress found that the
differing drinking ages in the States created particular incentives for
young persons to combine their desire to drink with their ability to
drive, and that this interstate problem required a national solution.
The means it chose to address this dangerous situation were reasonably
calculated to advance the general welfare. The conditions upon which
States receive the funds, moreover, could not be more clearly stated by
Congress. And the State itself, rather than challenging the germaneness
of the condition to federal purposes, admits that it "has never
contended that the congressional action was . . . unrelated to a
national concern in the absence of the Twenty-first Amendment." Indeed,
the condition imposed by Congress is directly related to one of the
main purposes for which highway funds are expended -- safe interstate
travel. This goal of the interstate highway system had been frustrated
by varying drinking ages among the States. A Presidential commission
appointed to study alcohol-related accidents and fatalities on the
Nation's highways concluded that the lack of uniformity in the States'
drinking ages created "an incentive to drink and drive" because "young
persons commut[e] to border States where the drinking age is lower."
Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving, Final Report 11 (1983). By
enacting § 158, Congress conditioned the receipt of federal funds
in a way reasonably calculated to address this particular impediment to
a purpose for which the funds are expended. And the State itself,
rather than challenging the germaneness of the condition to federal
purposes, admits that it "has never contended that the congressional
action was . . . unrelated to a national concern in the absence of the
Twenty-first Amendment." Indeed, the condition imposed by Congress is
directly related to one of the main purposes for which highway funds
are expended -- safe interstate travel. [Footnote: Our cases have not
required that we define the outer bounds of the "germaneness" or
"relatedness" limitation on the imposition of conditions under the
spending power. Amici urge that we take this occasion to establish that
a condition on federal funds is legitimate only if it relates directly
to the purpose of the expenditure to which it is attached. Because
petitioner has not sought such a restriction, and because we find any
such limitation on conditional federal grants satisfied in this case in
any event, we do not address whether conditions less directly related
to the particular purpose of the expenditure might be outside the
bounds of the spending power.]
The remaining question about the validity of § 158 -- and the
basic point of disagreement between the parties -- is whether the
Twenty-first Amendment constitutes an "independent constitutional bar"
to the conditional grant of federal funds. Petitioner, relying on its
view that the Twenty-first Amendment prohibits direct regulation of
drinking ages by Congress, asserts that "Congress may not use the
spending power to regulate that which it is prohibited from regulating
directly under the Twenty-first Amendment." But our cases show that
this "independent constitutional bar" limitation on the spending power
is not of the kind petitioner suggests. The "independent constitutional
bar" limitation on the spending power is not, as petitioner suggests, a
prohibition on the indirect achievement of objectives which Congress is
not empowered to achieve directly. Instead, we think that the language
in our earlier opinions stands for the unexceptionable proposition that
the power may not be used to induce the States to engage in activities
that would themselves be unconstitutional. Thus, for example, a grant
of federal funds conditioned on invidiously discriminatory state action
or the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment would be an
illegitimate exercise of the Congress' broad spending power. But
no such claim can be or is made here. Were South Dakota to succumb to
the blandishments offered by Congress and raise its drinking age to 21,
the State's action in so doing would not violate the constitutional
rights of anyone.
Our decisions have recognized that in some circumstances the financial
inducement offered by Congress might be so coercive as to pass the
point at which "pressure turns into compulsion." Here, however,
Congress has directed only that a State desiring to establish a minimum
drinking age lower than 21 lose a relatively small percentage of
certain federal highway funds. Petitioner contends that the coercive
nature of this program is evident from the degree of success it has
achieved. We cannot conclude, however, that a conditional grant
of federal money of this sort is unconstitutional simply by reason of
its success in achieving the congressional objective.
When we consider, for a moment, that all South Dakota would lose if she
adheres to her chosen course as to a suitable minimum drinking age is
5% of the funds otherwise obtainable under specified highway grant
programs, the argument as to coercion is shown to be more rhetoric than
fact. As we said a half century ago in Steward Machine Co. v.
Davis:
"Every rebate from a tax when conditioned upon conduct is in some
measure a temptation. But to hold that motive or temptation is
equivalent to coercion is to plunge the law in endless difficulties.
The outcome of such a doctrine is the acceptance of a philosophical
determinism by which choice becomes impossible. Till now the law has
been guided by a robust common sense which assumes the freedom of the
will as a working hypothesis in the solution of its problems." 301
U.S., at 589-590.
Here Congress has offered relatively mild encouragement to the States
to enact higher minimum drinking ages than they would otherwise choose.
But the enactment of such laws remains the prerogative of the States
not merely in theory but in fact. Even if Congress might lack the power
to impose a national minimum drinking age directly, we conclude that
encouragement to state action found in § 158 is a valid use of the
spending power.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, dissenting.
The Court today upholds the National Minimum Drinking Age Amendment, 23
U. S. C. § 158 (1982 ed., Supp. III), as a valid exercise of the
spending power conferred by Article I, § 8. But § 158
is not a condition on spending reasonably related to the expenditure of
federal funds and cannot be justified on that ground. Rather, it
is an attempt to regulate the sale of liquor, an attempt that lies
outside Congress' power to regulate commerce because it falls within
the ambit of § 2 of the Twenty-first Amendment.
My disagreement with the Court is relatively narrow on the spending
power issue: it is a disagreement about the application of a principle
rather than a disagreement on the principle itself. I agree with
the Court that Congress may attach conditions on the receipt of federal
funds to further "the federal interest in particular national projects
or programs." I also subscribe to the established proposition that the
reach of the spending power "is not limited by the direct grants of
legislative power found in the Constitution." Finally, I agree that
there are four separate types of limitations on the spending power: the
expenditure must be for the general welfare, the conditions imposed
must be unambiguous, they must be reasonably related to the purpose of
the expenditure, and the legislation may not violate any independent
constitutional prohibition. Insofar as two of those limitations are
concerned, the Court is clearly correct that § 158 is wholly
unobjectionable. Establishment of a national minimum drinking age
certainly fits within the broad concept of the general welfare and the
statute is entirely unambiguous. I am also willing to assume, arguendo,
that the Twenty-first Amendment does not constitute an "independent
constitutional bar" to a spending condition.
But the Court's application of the requirement that the condition
imposed be reasonably related to the purpose for which the funds are
expended is cursory and unconvincing. We have repeatedly said that
Congress may condition grants under the spending power only in ways
reasonably related to the purpose of the federal program. In my view,
establishment of a minimum drinking age of 21 is not sufficiently
related to interstate highway construction to justify so conditioning
funds appropriated for that purpose.