Updated February 5, 2001

David M. Heger
Policy Analyst
National Violence Against Women Prevention Research Center
University of Missouri–St. Louis 

Saenz Ruling Favors Indigent Women Fleeing Abuse

On May 17, 1999, the United States Supreme Court handed down a 7-2 decision striking a provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (also known as the Welfare Reform Bill) that allowed states to provide lower welfare benefits to new residents (42 U.S.C. 604(c)). Writing for the majority in Saenz v. Roe, Justice John Paul Stevens states, "Citizens of the United States, whether rich or poor, have the right to choose to be citizens 'of the State wherein they reside.' The States, however, do not have any right to select their citizens." The State of California argued that the purpose of its 1992 law to limit the amount of welfare assistance available to new residents (section 11450.03 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code) was not to fence out the indigent, but rather to save the state's taxpayers $10.9 million a year. The Court ruled that this rationale did not justify the state's law. Furthermore, because the law imposed durational residency requirements on a public benefit, the Court decided that it violated the constitutional right to interstate travel or migration.

Many studies have shown that the percentage of welfare recipients who are victims of domestic violence is much higher than the percentage of the general population who suffers violence at home. The rates vary from study to study, but most data indicate that over 50 percent of welfare recipients have experienced abuse at the hands of an intimate partner at least once in their lifetime.

Some victims of domestic violence relocate to a new state of residence to escape the wrath of their abusers. Each of the three original plaintiffs in the case that spurred Saenz v. Roe were welfare recipients who had moved to California to flee abusive family circumstances. Under the 1992 California law limiting public assistance, these women were restricted for one year to welfare payments equal to what they had received in their prior states of residence. The amounts they received were several hundred dollars less per month than what California afforded long-term residents on welfare. In fact, what they were afforded during their first year in California was far too little on which to survive, given the state's relatively high cost of living.

The previous federal welfare program, Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), required the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to approve any state alterations on federal law. The Secretary endorsed the new California statute and it was then put into effect. However, based primarily on previous U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Shapiro v. Thompson and Zobel v. Williams, a federal district court enjoined implementation of section 11450.03 in Green v. Anderson. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the lower court. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, but subsequently threw it out after the HHS Secretary's approval of the California law was invalidated in a separate proceeding.

In 1996, Congress reformed the nation's welfare program by replacing AFDC with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which included a provision that validated laws in California and other states to pay lower benefits to newly arrived residents. The district court responded by granting plaintiffs' request for an injunction, declaring the new federal statute to be unconstitutional. The Ninth Circuit affirmed and the case made its way to the nation's highest court.

The Supreme Court affirmed the lower court's ruling in Saenz v. Roe by relying on the Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, a provision utilized by the Court so infrequently that many legal scholars had ignored its existence. Chief Justice William Rehnquist opens his dissent with a sardonic assessment of the reasoning of the majority opinion. "The Court today breathes new life into the previously dormant Privileges or Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment…" The clause states that "no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." In past decisions defending the constitutional right to travel, justices had invoked the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, which declares that no state can "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Legal scholars will continue to analyze and scrutinize the grounding of the majority opinion in Saenz. However, as a practical matter, the ruling is a victory for economically disadvantaged women who want to start new lives in places far away from the source of their abuse. When making the decision to leave an abusive partner, battered women will not be confined by a state's law to limit welfare assistance. As an advocate told the Washington Post, "It is a big deal, especially when you consider these folks live on the edge. In some cases, it would mean the difference between paying the rent or not paying it."