Stafford, J.
Eligibility to take Seattle’s civil service examinations is limited to citizens of the United States. This appeal involves the validity of provisions in the city’s charter and civil service rules which create such limitation.
[50]*50Both appellants are aliens who lawfully reside in the United States and who have applied to become naturalized citizens. Each is a taxpayer of King County, Washington. Both are “provisionally” employed by the city as transit operators and each is a competent worker. Their duties 'are such that they can be performed as well by them as by citizens. No issue of security is involved.
Appellants Herriott and Ramsay have been continuously employed by the city from 1966 and 1968 respectively. They were initially employed during a period of relatively full employment. Changing economic conditions, however, brought forth a number of citizen applicants seeking permanent civil service employment as transit operators. A list of persons eligible for permanent civil service employment in such positions was made available to the appointing authority and appellants were notified that, effective June 12, 1970, they would be discharged as “provisional employees”.
Appellants filed requests to take the required civil service examination. Their applications were rejected by the city’s civil service commission solely because they were not citizens of the United States.
Appellants brought this action to enjoin the city from discharging them and to have provisions of the charter and rules, making citizenship a requirement for taking1 the civil service examination, declared void. They appeal from a judgment dismissing their complaint. The city was temporarily enjoined, however, from dismissing appellants pending the outcome of this appeal.
The challenged provisions are the same as those involved in Hsieh v. Civil Serv. Comm’n, 79 Wn.2d 529, 530, 488 P.2d 515 (1971):
[51]*51Article 16, § 6 of the Seattle City Charter provides in part:
All applicants for offices or places in the classified civil service shall be subject to examination, which shall be public, competitive and open to all citizens of the United States with specified limitations as to residence, age, health, habits and moral character . . .
Civil service rule 4.01, adopted pursuant to charter authority, provides that in order to qualify for examination the applicant must be a citizen of the United States. Rule 7.07 allows provisional employment of noncivil service persons when there is no suitable eligible register of regular civil service personnel available. Such provisional employment is restricted to 60-day, renewable periods, pending availability of an “adequate eligible register,” and must cease within 21 days after notice that a regular civil service employee is available, unless an extension is granted by the secretary of the civil service department.
However, Hsieh does not resolve the issues currently before us. In that case we held that the city’s application of the challenged charter and rule provisions to those appellants conflicted with the federal scheme of immigration. In the instant case, however, we are unable to determine whether such a conflict exists.
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 as amended, 8 U.S.C. § 1101 et seq. (1970) (hereinafter referred to by sections of United States Code Title 8), is the source of the federal policy upon which we based our decision in Hsieh. The act establishes a quota system. Section 1151 (a) sets numerical limitations on the total number of immigrants that may be lawfully admitted. However, the apportionment therein is exclusive of “special immigrant”2 and [52]*52“immediate relatives”3 of United States citizens. Section 1153 provides for the allocation of immigrant visas in “preference” categories with percentage limitations subject to the quota in section 1151 (a). There are seven “preference” categories4 and an eighth “nonpreference” category.5 Thus, all immigrants admitted into the United States fall into one of four groups: (1) “special immigrants”, which includes five subclassifications; (2) “immediate relatives”; (3) immigrants in one of seven “preference” categories; or (4) “nonpreference” immigrants.
The federal scheme regulating the particular aspect of [53]*53immigration discussed in Hsieh derives from section 1182 (a) (14) .6 That section requires the Secretary of Labor to inake the following determination as a condition precedent to the admission of certain classes of immigrants:
1. That there are not sufficient workers in the United States who are able, willing, qualified and available:
a. At the time of application for a visa; and
b. At the place to which the alien is destined to perform such labor; and
2. That the employment of such aliens will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of the workers in the United States similarly employed.
Such determination is required for only four classes of immigrants: (1) “special immigrants” bom in an independent country in the Western Hemisphere or Canal Zone (one of five subclasses of “special immigrants”); (2) members of professions or persons with exceptional ability in the sciences or arts (one of seven “preference” categories); (3) qualified immigrants capable of performing specified skilled or unskilled labor needed in the United States (one of seven “preference” categories); and (4) “nonpref[54]*54erence” immigrants. No other classes of immigrants need to have such determination made to be admitted.
Pursuant to section 1182(a) (14), the Secretary of Labor has promulgated regulations to implement the federal scheme. To reduce delay in processing an alien’s request for a visa, the secretary has made the determination required and has published it in three schedules. 29 C.F.R. § 60.
Schedule “A” lists categories of employment for which there is a shortage of workers and in which aliens will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed workers in the United States. 29 C.F.R. § 60.2(a) (1); 29 C.F.R. § 60.6. This schedule, originally published in 1965 and amended in 1966, is in effect until amended and applies to the entire United States unless a specific geographic area is exempted with regard to a specific employment category. 29 C.F.R. § 60.2(b).
Schedule “B” lists categories of employment for which the required determination could not be made at the time of its publication. 29 C.F.R. § 60.2 (a) (2); 29 C.F.R. § 60.6.
Schedule “C” is also a precertification list, but unlike Schedule “A”, the employment categories in Schedule “C” are under continuous review. Schedule “C” is published at least quarterly. 29 C.F.R. § 60.3(c). Modification in the schedules can be initiated by directing a request to the Secretary of Labor. 29 C.F.R. § 60.2 (c).
If immigrants are in one of the four classes for which a determination by the Secretary of Labor is required as a prerequisite for admission and if they are qualified to be in an employment category listed in Schedule “A” or in the appropriate Schedule “C”, the requirement in section 1182(a) (14) is satisfied. But if they do not possess skills in categories listed in Schedules “A” or “C”, an individual determination must be made in their case. 29 C.F.R. § 60.3.
In Hsieh v. Civil Serv. Comm’n, 79 Wn.2d 529, 488 P.2d 515 (1971), the plaintiffs were civil engineers, an employment category listed in the secretary’s Schedule “A”. We held, at page 532:
federal supremacy in the field of immigration as exercised [55]*55by Congress precludes the city from establishing citizenship as a condition to eligibility for civil service examination for general public employment in occupations which have been designated as needed by the Secretary of Labor.
In the instant case, however, appellants are transit operators. That employment category is not listed in Schedules “A” or “B”,7 and the record does not reveal whether it was listed in the appropriate Schedule “C”. Further, the record does not reveal that the Secretary of Labor made an individual determination in appellants’ case. In fact, the record does not disclose the class of immigrant in which appellants fall. Thus, it is impossible for us to decide whether section 1182(a) (14) applies to them. In the absence of such information we cannot determine whether the citizenship requirement, as applied to these appellants, conflicts with the federal scheme under the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.
This hiatus brings us to appellants’ contention that the citizenship requirement of the city charter and civil service rules violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
It is not questioned that the city’s act of excluding aliens from civil service is within the ambit of the Fourteenth Amendment. Hsieh v. Civil Serv. Comm’n, supra. The equal protection clause applies to resident aliens as well as citizens. Takahashi v. Fish & Game Comm’n, 334 U.S. 410, 420, 92 L. Ed. 1478, 68 S. Ct. 1138 (1948); Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 39, 60 L. Ed. 131, 36 S. Ct. 7 (1915) ; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 369, 30 L. Ed. 220, 6 S. Ct. 1064 (1886). As stated by Justice Murphy’s concurring opinion in Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 161, 89 L. Ed. 2103, 65 S. Ct. 1443 (1945):
Since an alien obviously brings with him no constitutional rights, Congress may exclude him in the first in[56]*56stance for whatever reason it sees fit. Turner v. Williams, 194 U. S. 279. The Bill of Rights is a futile authority for the alien seeking admission for the first time to these shores. But once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders. Such rights include those protected by the First and the Fifth Amendments and by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. None of these provisions acknowledges any distinction between citizens and resident aliens. They extend their inalienable privileges to all “persons” and guard against any encroachment on those rights by federal or state authority.
Since the turn of the century, the United States Supreme Court has been solicitous of the economic rights of aliens under the constitution.8 In Truax v. Raich, supra, the court invalidated an Arizona statute which provided that if one employed five or more employees, not less than 80 percent thereof must be citizens. Basing its decision on the equal protection clause, the court stated at page 41:
It requires no argument to show that the right to work for a living in the common occupations of the community is of the very essence of the personal freedom and opportunity that it was the purpose of the Amendment to secure.
The court, however, allowed an exception if the state could show a “special public interest” with respect to a particular business.
The “special public interest” exception remained the court’s rationale in decisions sustaining the citizenship requirements of employment until its erosion began in Takahashi v. Fish & Game Comm’n, supra, and culminated in [57]*57Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 29 L. Ed. 2d 534, 91 S. Ct. 1848 (1971).
In Heim v. McCall, 239 U.S. 175, 60 L. Ed. 206, 36 S. Ct. 78 (1915) and Crane v. New York, 239 U.S. 195, 60 L. Ed. 218, 36 S. Ct. 85 (1915) the court upheld the constitutionality of a New York statute restricting employment, in public works, to citizens of the United States. In Ohio ex rel. Clarke v. Deckebach, 274 U.S. 392, 71 L. Ed. 1115, 47 S. Ct. 630 (1927), the court held constitutional an ordinance of the city of Cincinnati which prohibited the issuance, to aliens, of licenses to conduct pool and billiard rooms.9
Heim and Crane were companion cases. In upholding the statute, then Chief Judge Cardozo, writing for the New York Court of Appeals, observed that:
Whatever is a privilege rather than a right, may be made dependent upon citizenship.
People v. Crane, 214 N.Y. 154, 164, 108 N.E. 427, 430 (1915). In affirming the New York court, Mr. Justice McKenna, writing for the United States Supreme Court in the companion case of Heim, adopted a slightly different approach. He reasoned that the state could “ ‘prescribe the conditions upon which it will permit public work to be done on its behalf, or on behalf of its municipalities.’ ” Heim v. McCall, 239 U.S. 175, 191, 60 L. Ed. 206, 36 S. Ct. 78 (1915).
The reasoning of both Chief Judge Cardozo and Justice McKenna formed the basis for this court’s opinion in Cornelius v. Seattle, 123 Wash. 550, 213 P. 17 (1923). There we held that Seattle’s restriction of franchises, for the collection of swill, to citizens was not violative of the equal protection clause.
[58]*58Cornelius relied on Jahn v. Seattle, 120 Wash. 403, 207 P. 667 (1922), which had upheld the city’s power to require private contractors on public works projects to pay their employees at a rate no less than that paid by the city for work of like character. The John decision had been based on Mr. Justice McKenna’s reasoning in Heim and Crane. In Hsieh v. Civil Serv. Comm’n, 79 Wn.2d 529, 488 P.2d 515 (1971), at 533-34, we acknowledge that Cornelius’ reliance on Jahn was inappropriate.
Further developments in the law of alien rights, subsequent to Cornelius, have made inappropriate our reliance, in that opinion, on the right-privilege distinction articulated by Chief Judge Cardozo.
In Takahashi v. Fish & Game Comm’n, 334 U.S. 410, 92 L. Ed. 1478, 68 S. Ct. 1138 (1948), the court voided a California statute which denied commercial fishing licenses to all aliens ineligible to become citizens. The statute’s effect had been to discriminate against Japanese aliens, since federal immigration policy made them ineligible for citizenship. The state sought to sustain the validity of its classification under an alleged “special public interest” in owning and conserving its fishery resource. The court rejected the state’s contention, finding, at page 421, that whatever “special public interest” California had by reason of its ownership of the fish was inadequate to justify the exclusion of “any or all aliens who are lawful residents of the State from making a living by fishing in the ocean off its shores while permitting all others to do so.”
Recognizing the rejection of the “special public interest” doctrine in Takahashi, the California Supreme Court subsequently ruled that a statute prohibiting the employment of aliens in public works projects, except in emergencies, violated the equal protection clause as well as the federal immigration policy. Purdy & Fitzpatrick v. State, 71 Cal. 2d 566, 456 P.2d 645, 79 Cal. Rptr. 77 (1969). The court found in Purdy that the fact of alienage bore no rational relationship to the suitability of those who work upon public projects or the need of the laborer for such employment.
[59]*59The position of the California court was recently reinforced by the United States Supreme Court in Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 29 L. Ed. 2d 534, 91 S. Ct. 1848 (1971). Graham held that a state law denying welfare benefits solely on the basis of alienage was violative of the equal protection clause. In so holding, the court expressly rejected the “special public interest” doctrine thereby seriously undermining the precedential value of both Heim and Crane.
In Graham the court stated at page 372:
It is true that this Court on occasion has upheld state statutes that treat citizens and noncitizens differently, the ground for distinction having been that such laws were necessary to protect special interests of the State or its citizens.
Nevertheless, after discussing Heim and Crane, the court went on to say, at page 374:
Takahashi v. Fish & Game Comm’n, 334 U. S. 410 (1948), however, cast doubt on the continuing validity of the special public-interest doctrine in all contexts.
. . . the special public interest doctrine was heavily grounded on the notion that “[wjhatever is a privilege, rather than a right, may be made dependent upon citizenship.” People v. Crane, 214 N. Y., at 164, 108 N. E., at 430. But this Court now has rejected the concept that constitutional rights turn upon whether a governmental benefit is characterized as a “right” or as a “privilege.”
The clear policy of the United States Supreme Court to apply the guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment to protection of the economic rights of aliens, and particularly the court’s rejection of the “special public interest doctrine,” undermine our holding in Cornelius v. Seattle, supra. We, therefore, expressly overrule that portion of Cornelius which holds that the citizenship requirement, as applied therein, did not violate the equal protection clause of our state and federal constitutions.
In so doing, we adopt the more modem approach of the [60]*60California court in Purdy & Fitzpatrick v. State, supra at 581. That case observed with much common sense:
May the state -simply favor its own citizens in the disbursement of public funds? First, since aliens support the State of California with their tax dollars, any preference in the disbursement of public funds which excludes aliens appears manifestly unfair . . . any classification which treats all aliens as undeserving and all United States citizens as deserving rests upon a very questionable basis. The citizen may be a newcomer to the state who has little “stake” in the community; the alien may be a resident who has lived in California for a lengthy period, paid taxes, served in our firmed forces, demonstrated his worth as a constructive human being, and contributed much to the growth and development of the state.
(Footnotes omitted.) We have long since passed that time in history when resident aliens of Boston were met with signs which read: “Help wanted—Irish need not apply here for work!”
Equal protection of the laws under our state and federal constitutions requires that persons similarly - situated with respect to the legitimate purpose of the law receive like treatment. See generally, Development in the Law—Equal Protection, 82 Harv. L. Rev. 1065, 1076 (1969). Without question states retain broad discretion to classify so long as their classifications have a reasonable basis. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420, 425-27, 6 L. Ed. 2d 393, 81 S. Ct. 1101 (1961); Morey v. Doud, 354 U.S. 457, 465, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1485, 77 S. Ct. 1344 (1957). They bear, however, the burden of establishing that their classification constitutes a necessary means of accomphshing a legitimate state interest. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 11, 18 L. Ed. 2d 1010, 87 S. Ct. 1817 (1967); McLaughlin v. Florida, 379 U.S. 184, 196, 13 L. Ed. 2d 222, 85 S. Ct. 283 (1964). Further, a classification based on alienage is inherently suspect and subject to close judicial scrutiny. Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 372, 29 L. Ed. 2d 534, 91 S. Ct. 1848 [61]*61(1971); Hsieh v. Civil Serv. Comm’n, 79 Wn.2d 529, 535, 488 P.2d 515 (1971).
The Seattle charter and civil service rule create two classes of civil service applicants indistinguishable except with respect to whether they are United States citizens. To sustain this classification there must be shown to be a reasonable relationship between the citizenship requirement and an applicant’s qualification to take the civil service examination for a position of general employment with the city.
The city has not sustained its burden of showing such reasonable relationship here. The purpose of civil service is to establish a merit system of public employment in the matter of the selection, appointment, discipline and discharge of civil employees. Gogerty v. Department of Inst., 71 Wn.2d 1, 4-5, 426 P.2d 476 (1967); State ex rel. Voris v. Seattle, 74 Wash. 199, 204, 133 P. 11, 4 A.L.R. 198 (1913). It is thought that elimination of the arbitrary employment procedures of the spoils system enables state, county, and municipal governments to render more efficient services to the public. Civil Serv. Comm’n v. Foley, 75 Ariz. 364, 371, 257 P.2d 384 (1953). The citizenship requirement in no way relates to these legitimate ends in the area of general employment.
Citizenship is the status accorded those persons entitled to participate in the act of governing. Citizens are members of a political community “who, in their associated capacity, have established or submitted themselves to the dominion of a government for the promotion of their general welfare and the protection of their individual as well as their collective rights.” United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. (2 Otto) 542, 549, 23 L. Ed. 588 (1875). See also Minor v. Happersett, 88 U.S. (21 Wall.) 162, 165-66, 22 L. Ed. 627 (1874).
The critical attribute which distinguishes the citizen from the alien is that the citizen possesses political rights:
a citizen in a democratic society is one who enjoys, [62]*62among his privileges and. immunities, the right to participate in the formulation of the legal norms—public and private—to which he is responsible. In the American scheme, an alien is not granted full membership in the sovereign people but, under the Equal Protection Clause, is granted limited membership in that body. He does not enjoy full political rights and may reside in the country only at the sufferance of the national government, but his private rights are protected from unreasonable state action during that residence.[10]
These political rights include the right to vote,11 to hold elective office and to serve as a juror. They differ from private or civil rights held by aliens in common with citizens, such as the right not to be excluded from employment solely on the ground of alienage,12 to hold property,13 and, if qualified, to receive public assistance.14
In addition to the distinction based on the exercise of political rights, citizens are distinguished from aliens in the allegiance they owe this country. The duty of allegiance owed by the citizen is an absolute and permanent obligation whereas the duty of allegiance owed by the alien, while domiciled in this country, is local and temporary.15 [63]*63Carlisle v. United States, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 147, 154, 21 L. Ed. 426 (1872).
Exercise of political rights and fidelity of allegiance, the characteristics that distinguish the citizen from the alien, bear no rational relationship to qualification to take a civil service examination for a position in general public employment16 which does not rise to the status of public office or which involves no requirement of security.
The position of transit operator is a position of general employment that neither rises to the status of public office nor involves a requirement of security. Application of the citizenship requirement to these appellants, therefore, violates their constitutionally guaranteed right to equal protection of the laws.
The city must permit appellants to take the civil service examination for the position of transit operator. Whether appellants attain civil service status will depend on their performance in the examination and their compliance with requirements, other than citizenship, for admission to the city’s civil service.
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for disposition consistent with this opinion.
Hamilton, C.J., Rosellini, Hunter, Neill, and Wright, JJ., concur.