Dormant Commerce Clause
Decline of formalism

The Court upheld the reworded statute as not violative of the prohibition on privilege taxes, even though the impact of the old tax and new were essentially identical. There was no real economic difference between the statutes in Railway Express I and Railway Express II. The Court long since had recognized that interstate commerce may be made to pay its way. Yet under the Spector rule, the economic realities in Railway Express I became irrelevant. The Spector rule (against privilege taxes) had come to operate only as a rule of draftsmanship, and served only to distract the courts and parties from their inquiry into whether the challenged tax produced results forbidden by the Commerce Clause.
oulipo:avoid_letter[e], length_constraints:number_paragraphs[5], startend:quotation