Opinion of the Court
They “plainly discriminate[d]” against out-of-staters by “erecting an economic barrier protecting a major local industry against competition from without the State.” Dean Milk Co. v. Madison, 340 U. S. 349, 354 (1951) (discussing Baldwin). Really, the laws operated like “a tariff or customs duty.” West Lynn Creamery, Inc. v. Healy, 512 U. S. 186, 194 (1994); see Baldwin, 294 U. S., at 523 (condemning the challenged laws for seeking to “protec[t]” New York dairy farmers “against competition from without”).
Brown-Forman and Healy differed from Baldwin only in that they involved price-affirmation, rather than price-fixing, statutes. In Brown-Forman, New York required liquor distillers to affirm (on a monthly basis) that their in-state prices were no higher than their out-of-state prices. 476 U. S., at 576. Once more, the goal was plain: New York sought to force out-of-state distillers to “surrender” whatever cost advantages they enjoyed against their in-state rivals. Id., at 580. Once more, the law amounted to “simple economic protectionism.” Ibid. (internal quotation marks omitted).
In Healy, a Connecticut law required out-of-state beer merchants to affirm that their in-state prices were no higher than those they charged in neighboring States. 491 U. S., at 328–330. Here, too, protectionism took center stage. As the Court later noted, “[t]he essential vice in laws” like Connecticut’s is that they “hoard” commerce “for the benefit of” in-state merchants and discourage consumers from crossing state lines to make their purchases from nearby out-of-state vendors. C & A Carbone, Inc. v. Clarkstown, 511 U. S. 383, 391–392 (1994). Nor did the law in Healy even try to cloak its discriminatory purpose: “By its plain terms, the Connecticut affirmation statute applie[d] solely to interstate” firms, and in that way “clearly discriminate[d] against interstate commerce.” 491 U. S., at 340–341. The Court also worried that, if the Connecticut law
