1 BRENNAN, J., dissenting is wholly out of step with the modern attempts of this Court to define the reach of the Contract Clause when a State's own contractual obligations are placed in issue. Mr. Justice Cardozo's opinion in W. B. Worthen Co. v. Kavanaugh, 295 U. S. 56 (1935), is the prime exposition of the a fundamental constitutional right must be "necessary to promote a compelling governmental interest"). The Court's new test, therefore, represents a most unusual hybrid which manages to merge the two polar extremes of judicial intervention, see generally Gunther, Foreword: In Search of Evolving Doctrine on A Changing Court: A Model for a Newer Equal Protection, 86 Harv. L. Rev. 1,8 (1972), into one synthesis. Plainly, courts are apt to face considerable confusion in wielding such a schizophrenic new instrument. And well they might, for until today one would have fairly thought that as a matter of common sense as well as doctrine, state policies that are "necessary to serve an important public purpose." ante, at 25, a fortiori would be "reasonable." The Court, however, seems to discover new meanings in these terms. "Necessary" appears to comport with some notion of a less restrictive alternative. As applied by the Court in this instance, however, the less restrictive alternative bears no relationship to previous uses of that analytical tool when economic and social matters were involved. Thus, the Court does not actually inquire whether "the government can achieve the purposes of the challenged regulation equally effectively by one or more narrower regulations." Struve, The Less-Restrictive-Alternative Principle and Economic Due Process, 80 Harv. L. Rev. 1463 (1967). Rather, the Court concludes that an impairment of contract was not "necessary" because the Court apparently is able to hypothesize other means of achieving some or all of the State's objectives, even though these alternatives have long been deemed as secondary in importance, nn. 7, 8, supra, or arguably are unconstitutional, ante, at 30 n. 28. Under this approach, few, if any, Contract Clause cases in history that have deferred to state policymaking have been correctly decided. See infra, at 59. The "reasonableness" test does no better. No longer does it mean that this Court will defer to the "reasonable judgments" of the authorized policymakers. Knebel v. Hein, 429 U. S. 288, 297 (1977). Instead, the Court appears to ask whether changed circumstances took the state legislature by surprise, ante, at 31-32. Again, I find no basis in this Court's prior cases for adopting such a constrictive view of that constitutional test. See infra, at 59–60. BRENNAN, J., dissenting 431 U.S. modern view. As a relief measure for financially depressed local governments, Arkansas enacted a statute that greatly diminished the remedies available to creditors under their bonds. This resulted in a remedial scheme whereby creditors were "without an effective remedy" for a minimum of 61⁄2 years, during which time the government's obligation to pay principal or interest was suspended. Id., at 61. The Court invalidated the alteration in remedies. It did so, however, only after concluding that the challenged state law cut recklessly and excessively into the value of the creditors' bonds: "[W]ith studied indifference to the interests of the mortgagee or to his appropriate protection [the State has] taken from the mortgage the quality of an acceptable investment for a rational investor." Id., at 60. "So viewed [the State's action is] seen to be an oppressive and unnecessary destruction of nearly all the incidents that give attractiveness and value to collateral security." Id., at 62. In the present case, the trial court expressly applied the Kavanaugh standard to New Jersey's repeal of the covenant, and properly found appellant's claim to be wanting in all material respects: In a detailed and persuasive discussion, the court concluded that neither New Jersey nor New York repealed the covenant with the intention of damaging their creditors' financial position. Rather, the States acted out of "vital interest[s]," for "[t]he passage of time and events between 1962 and 1974 satisfied the Legislatures of the two states that the public interest which the Port Authority was intended to serve could not be met within the terms of the covenant." 134 N. J. Super., at 194, 338 A. 2d, at 873. And the creditors' corresponding injury did not even remotely reach that proscribed in Kavanaugh: Not only have Authority bonds remained "an ‘acceptable investment,'" but "[t]he claim that bondholder security has been materially impaired or destroyed by the repeal is simply not supported by the record." Id., at 196, 338 A. 2d, at 874. The Court, as I read today's opinion, does not hold that 1 BRENNAN, J., dissenting the trial court erred in its application of the facts of this case to Mr. Justice Cardozo's formulation. Instead, it manages to take refuge in the fact that Kavanaugh left open the possibility that the test it enunciated may merely represent the "'outermost limits' " of state authority. Ante, at 27. This, I submit, is a slender thread upon which to hang a belated revival of the Contract Clause some 40 years later. And, in any event, whatever opening remained after Kavanaugh was surely closed by Mr. Justice Frankfurter in Faitoute Iron & Steel Co. v. City of Asbury Park, 316 U. S. 502 (1942). Speaking for a unanimous Court, id., at 515, he employed the precise constitutional standard established by Mr. Justice Cardozo seven years earlier, and upheld under the Contract Clause a New Jersey plan to reorganize the outstanding debt obligations held by creditors of Asbury Park. The Court thereby authorized an impairment of creditors' financial interests that was far more substantial than that involved here: In fact, the reorganization plan both extended the maturity date of the city's bonds by some 30 years and reduced the relevant coupon rate. Yet, rather than suggesting, as does the Court today, that New Jersey possessed lesser authority in the public interest to amend its own contracts than to alter private undertakings, the Court made clear that the State's powers are more expansive "[w]here the respective parties are not private persons. . . but are persons or corporations whose rights and powers were created for public purposes, by legislative acts, and where the subject-matter of the contract is one which affects the safety and welfare of the public." Id., at 514 n. 2, quoting Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Nebraska, 170 U. S., at 72. In my view, the fact that New Jersey's repeal of the 1962 covenant satisfies the constitutional standards defined in Kavanaugh and Faitoute should, as the state courts concluded, terminate this litigation. But even were I to agree that the test BRENNAN, J., dissenting 431 U.S. in Kavanaugh remains open to further refinement, that, I repeat, would hardly justify the Court's attempt to deploy the Contract Clause as an apparently unyielding instrument for policing the policies of New Jersey and New York. For such an interpretation plainly is at odds with the principles articulated in Kavanaugh and Faitoute, and subsequently reconfirmed by El Paso v. Simmons, 379 U. S. 497 (1965). The Court there considered a provision of Texas law that abolished an unlimited redemption period for landowners whose land had been defaulted to the State for nonpayment of interest, substituting a 5-year reinstatement period in its place. Unlike appellant here, Simmons at least could claim to have suffered tangible economic injury by virtue of the State's modification of his land-sale contract; indeed, as a result of that "impairment” he permanently lost property to the State. And, of course, Texas' "self-interest [was] at stake," ante, at 26, since it alone was the beneficiary of Simmons' curtailed right of reinstatement. Yet, properly applying the teachings of Blaisdell, Kavanaugh, and Faitoute, the Court had little difficulty in sustaining the measure as a means of removing clouds on title arising from pending reinstatement rights, 379 U. S., at 508-509 (citations omitted): "The Blaisdell opinion, which amounted to a comprehensive restatement of the principles underlying the application of the Contract Clause, makes it quite clear that '[n]ot only is the constitutional provision qualified by the measure of control which the State retains over remedial processes, but the State also continues to possess authority to safeguard the vital interests of its people. It does not matter that legislation appropriate to that end "has the result of modifying or abrogating contracts already in effect." .' 'Once we are in this domain of the reserve power of a State we must respect the "wide discretion on the part of the legislature in determining what is and what is not necessary." 1 BRENNAN, J., dissenting It need hardly be said that today's decision is markedly out of step with this deferential philosophy. The Court's willingness to uphold an impairment of contract-no matter how "technical" the injury-only on a showing of "necessity" ante, at 29-31, is particularly distressing, for this Court always will be able to devise abstract alternatives to the concrete action actually taken by a State. For example, in virtually every decided Contract Clause case, the government could have exercised the Court's "lesser alternative" of resorting to its powers of taxation as a substitute for modifying overly restrictive contracts. Ante, at 30 n. 29. Nothing, at least on the level of abstraction and conjecture engaged in by the Court today, prevented the appropriation of monies by Illinois to buy back or modify the corporate charter of the polluting fertilizer company in Fertilizing Co. v. Hyde Park, 97 U. S. 659 (1878); or by New Jersey to ensure the financial solvency of Asbury Park bonds, Faitoute Iron & Steel Co. v. City of Asbury Park, supra; or by Texas to purchase the unlimited redemption rights involved in El Paso v. Simmons, supra. Yet, in all these cases, modifications of state contracts were countenanced, and this Court did not feel compelled or qualified to instruct the state legislatures how best to pursue their business. In brief, these cases recognized that when economic matters are concerned, "the availability of alternatives does not render the [decisionmaker's] choice invalid." Knebel v. Hein, 429 U. S. 288, 294 (1977). State legislation "may not be held unconstitutional simply because a court finds it unnecessary, in whole or in part." Whalen v. Roe, 429 U. S. 589, 597 (1977). By the same token, if unforeseeability is the key to a "reasonable" decision, as the Court now contends, ante, at 32, almost all prior cases again must be repudiated. Surely the legislators of Illinois could not convincingly have claimed surprise because a fertilizer company polluted the air and transported fertilizer to its factory, Fertilizing Co. v. Hyde |