Harlan F. Stone

“ Incorporated cities in California may enact ordinances requiring license fees for the operation of motor vehicles used in transporting passengers for hire, and property, within city limits. Constitution of California, art. 11, §§ 11, 12; section 145, Motor Vehicle Act. It is conceded that all California cities have passed ordinances imposing such registration fees, varying from $5 to $42 per motor vehicle, in addition to those scheduled in section 77, and that 75 per cent. of the fees collected under these ordinances are applied to the maintenance of streets in cities. ”

“ That the Legislature may graduate the fees according to the propensities of the vehicles to injure or to destroy the public highways, and may exempt those with respect to which this tendency is slight or nonexistent, cannot be doubted. We may not assume that vehicles weighing less than 3,000 pounds, with loads which they usually carry, are not of this class, or that vehicles weighing more than 3,000 pounds with their accustomed burden added do not have this tendency. ”

“ It cannot be supposed that Congress intended to procure the abandonment by the states of this well-recognized type of taxation without more explicit language than that prohibiting tolls found in section 9 (23 USCA § 9) . ”

“ Section 36 (a) requires every motor vehicle operated upon the public highways of the state to be registered. Under section 77 (a) an annual fee of $3 is exacted for the registration of all motor vehicles. ”

“ Petitioners insist that the registration fees imposed by section 77 (b) and (c) are in effect tolls for the use of the high ways maintained by the state, see Matter of Schuler, 167 Cal. 282, 290, 139 P. 685, Ann. Cas. 1915C, 706; Bacon Service Corp. v. Huss, 199 Cal. 21, 29, 248 P. 235, and as they pay the license tax imposed by the cities for the use of city streets, the exaction of the additional 'tolls' with respect to highways outside of cities, which petitioners in No. 86 do not use and which the petitioners in No. ”