U.S. Dept. of Agriculture v. Moreno 413 U.S. 528 (1973) Under the Food Stamp Act, the poor would receive credits to buy food. The eligibility was determined on the basis of overall 'household' income, not individual income. When the law was passed, §3(e) defined a 'household' to include unrelated, unmarried people living together, as long as they shared household expenses. A few years later, Congress modified the definition to only include related and married people as a household. Legislative history shows that Congress modified §3(e) to stop "hippies" and "hippie communes" from being about to take advantage of the program. Moreno et. al. sued, claiming that the change was an unconstitutional violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The change created two classes of people, those related to their roommates, and those who weren't. Those who weren't related were at a disadvantage. The US Supreme Court found the change to be unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court found that that to withstand judicial scrutiny on equal protection grounds, a law must bear a rational relation to some legitimate end. That's the rational basis test, which is the lowest level of judicial scrutiny. In this case, the Court found that the classification was clearly irrelevant to the stated purposes of the Food Stamp Act and not rationally furthering any other legitimate governmental interest. The purpose of the Food Stamp Act was to stop people from going hungry, and there was no basis for not allowing unrelated people to take advantage of the program. In general, the courts rarely overturn a law because it can't meet the rational basis test. The bar is usually pretty low.