Opinion of the Court
(CA7 2017); Amanda Acquisition Corp. v. Universal Foods Corp., 877 F. 2d 496, 505 (CA7 1989). So have many scholars. See, e.g., R. Fallon, The Dynamic Constitution 311 (2d ed. 2013) (observing that Pike serves to “ ‘smoke out’ a hidden” protectionism); B. Friedman & D. Deacon, A Course Unbroken: The Constitutional Legitimacy of the Dormant Commerce Clause, 97 Va. L. Rev. 1877, 1927 (2011); Regan, 84 Mich. L. Rev., at 1286.
Nor does any of this help petitioners in this case. They not only disavow any claim that Proposition 12 discriminates on its face. They nowhere suggest that an examination of Proposition 12’s practical effects in operation would disclose purposeful discrimination against out-of-state businesses. While this Court has left the “courtroom door open” to challenges premised on “even nondiscriminatory burdens,” Davis, 553 U. S., at 353, and while “a small number of our cases have invalidated state laws … that appear to have been genuinely nondiscriminatory,” Tracy, 519 U. S., at 298, n. 12,[1] petitioners’ claim falls well outside
- ↑ Most notably, Tracy referred to, and petitioners briefly allude to, a line of cases that originated before Pike in which this Court refused to enforce certain state regulations on instrumentalities of interstate transportation—trucks, trains, and the like. See, e.g., Bibb v. Navajo Freight Lines, Inc., 359 U. S. 520, 523–530 (1959) (concerning a state law specifying certain mud flaps for trucks and trailers); Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona ex rel. Sullivan, 325 U. S. 761, 763–782 (1945) (addressing a state law regarding the length of trains). Petitioners claim these cases support something like the extraterritoriality or balancing rules they propose. But at least some decisions in this line might be viewed as condemning state laws that “although neutral on their face … were enacted at the instance of, and primarily benefit,” in-state interests. Raymond Motor Transp., Inc. v. Rice, 434 U. S. 429, 447 (1978); see also B. Friedman & D. Deacon, A Course Unbroken: The Constitutional Legitimacy of the Dormant Commerce Clause, 97 Va. L. Rev. 1877, 1927 (2011). In any event, this Court “has only rarely held that the Commerce Clause itself pre-empts an entire field from state regulation, and then only when a lack of national uniformity would impede the flow of interstate goods.”
