Editing Dormant Commerce Clause (section)

===Formalistic approach===
As with the Court's application of the dormant commerce clause to discriminatory regulation, the pre-[[New Deal]] Court attempted to apply a [[Commerce Clause#Dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence|formalistic approach]] to state taxation alleged to interfere with interstate commerce. The history is described in ''Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Jefferson Lines, Inc.'', 514 U.S. 175 (1995):

<blockquote>The command has been stated more easily than its object has been attained, however, and the Court's understanding of the dormant Commerce Clause has taken some turns. In its early stages, the Court held the view that interstate commerce was wholly immune from state taxation "in any form", "even though the same amount of tax should be laid on (intrastate) commerce". This position gave way in time to a less uncompromising but formal approach, according to which, for example, the Court would invalidate a state tax levied on gross receipts from interstate commerce, or upon the "freight carried" in interstate commerce, but would allow a tax merely measured by gross receipts from interstate commerce as long as the tax was formally imposed upon franchises, or "'in lieu of all taxes upon (the taxpayer's) property,'" Dissenting from this formal approach in 1927, Justice Stone remarked that it was "too mechanical, too uncertain in its application, and too remote from actualities, to be of value." </blockquote>