Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1314_3ea4.pdf
Page Number: 48.0

Cite as:  576 U. S. ____ (2015) 

9 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

a  referendum  vote.  The  necessity  of  the  amendment  to
accomplish the purpose of popular election is shown in the
adoption  of  the  amendment.”). 
In  fact,  as  the  decades 
rolled  by  without  an  amendment,  28  of  the  45  States
settled for the next best thing by holding a popular vote on 
candidates  for  Senate,  then  pressuring  state  legislators
into  choosing  the  winner.    See,  e.g.,  Abstract  of  Laws 
Relating to the Election of United States Senators, S. Doc.
No.  393,  59th  Cong.,  2d  Sess.  (1907).    All  agreed  that
cutting  the  state  legislature  out  of  senatorial  selection
entirely  would  require  nothing  less  than  to  “Strike  out” 
the original words in the Constitution and “insert, ‘elected
by  the  people’ ”  in  its  place.  Cong.  Globe,  31st  Cong.,  1st
Sess., 88 (1849) (proposal of Sen. Jeremiah Clemens).

Yet that is precisely what the majority does to the Elec-
tions  Clause  today—amending  the  text  not  through  the
process  provided  by  Article  V,  but  by  judicial  decision. 
The  majority’s  revision  renders  the  Seventeenth  Amend-
ment  an  86-year  waste  of  time,  and  singles  out  the  Elec-
tions  Clause  as  the  only  one  of  the  Constitution’s  seven-
teen provisions referring to “the Legislature” that departs
from the ordinary meaning of the term.

The Commission had no answer to this point.  See Tr. of 
Oral Arg. 42 (JUSTICE ALITO: “Is there any other provision
where legislature means anything other than the conven-
tional  meaning?”  Appellee:  “I  don’t  know  the  answer  to 
that question.”).

The  Court’s  response  is  not  much  better.    The  majority
observes  that  “the  Legislature”  of  a  State  may  perform
different  functions  under  different  provisions  of  the  Con-
stitution.  Under  Article  I,  §3,  for  example,  “the  Legisla-
ture”  performed  an  “electoral”  function  by  choosing  Sena-
tors.  The  “Legislature”  plays  a  “consenting”  function
under  Article  I,  §8,  and  Article  IV,  §3;  a  “ratifying”  func-
tion  under  Article  V;  and  a  “lawmaking”  function  under 
the Elections Clause.  Ante, at 19, and n. 17.  All true.  The