Has any law failed a test of rational basis?
<p>Has any federal or state law ever been struck down because it had no <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review" rel="noreferrer">rational basis</a>, in a case where that was the standard for constitutionality?</p>

<p>The following article found seventeen cases between 1971 and 2014 when the Supreme Court, purportedly applying rational basis scrutiny, held that the law in question violated the equal protection clause.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nyulawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/NYULawReview-90-6-Note-Holoszyc-Pimentel_1.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Holoszyc-Pimentel, Raphael.  &quot;Reconciling rational-basis review: when does rational basis bite?&quot; <em>New York University Law Review</em> <strong>90</strong>: 2070-2117 (2015)</a></p>
<p>The article's introduction appendix to the article gives brief summaries of all seventeen.  (As well as one extra case, <em>Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co.</em> in which the majority opinion did not mention rational-basis scrutiny, but two concurring opinions, signed by a total of six justices, did.)  The author specifically cites <em>Romer v. Evans</em> as mentioned in bdb484's answer.  Another quotable example is <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/413/528/" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>USDA v. Moreno</em>, 413 U.S. 528 (1973)</a>, which examined a provision that denied food stamps to households where unrelated people were living together (e.g. hippie communes).  Its second-to-last sentence:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But the classification here in issue is not only &quot;imprecise,&quot; it is wholly without any rational basis.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Incidentally, Holoszyc-Pimentel's thesis is that in these cases, the Court was not truly applying rational-basis scrutiny, but some other slightly stronger standard, which the author calls &quot;rational basis with bite&quot;.</p>
<p>The full list of cases from the article:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>United States v. Windsor, 133 S. Ct. 2675 (2013);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620
(1996);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Quinn v. Millsap, 491 U.S. 95 (1989);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Allegheny Pittsburgh Coal Co. v. Cty.
Comm’n, 488 U.S. 336 (1989);</p>
</li>
<li><p>City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., Inc., 473 U.S. 432
(1985);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Hooper v. Bernalillo Cty. Assessor, 472 U.S. 612 (1985);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Williams v. Vermont, 472
U.S. 14 (1985);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Metro. Life Ins. Co. v. Ward, 470 U.S. 869 (1985);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S.
202 (1982);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Zobel v. Williams, 457 U.S. 55 (1982);</p>
</li>
<li><p>U.S. Dep’t of Agric. v. Moreno, 413 U.S.
528 (1973);</p>
</li>
<li><p>James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128 (1972);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Jackson v. Indiana, 406 U.S. 715 (1972);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Weber v. Aetna Cas. &amp; Sur. Co., 406 U.S. 164 (1972);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438 (1972);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56 (1972);</p>
</li>
<li><p>Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971).</p>
</li>
<li><p>Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422 (1982)</p>
</li>
</ol>

<p>Yes. The Supreme Court struck down Colorado's ban on enacting laws to extend legal protections on the basis of sexual orientation as having no rational basis. <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/517/620" rel="noreferrer"><em>Romer v. Evans</em>, 517 U.S. 620 (1996)</a>.</p>

united-states constitutional-law standard-of-review