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18 

ARIZONA STATE LEGISLATURE v. ARIZONA 
INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING COMM’N
 
Opinion of the Court 

ratifying, electoral, or consenting function.  Nothing in the 
Elections  Clause,  we  said,  “attempt[ed]  to  endow  the
legislature  of  the  State  with  power  to  enact  laws  in  any
manner  other  than  that  in  which  the  constitution  of  the 
State  ha[d]  provided  that  laws  shall  be  enacted.”    Id.,  at 
368. 

THE  CHIEF  JUSTICE,  in  dissent,  features,  indeed  trum­
pets  repeatedly,  the  pre-Seventeenth  Amendment  regime 
in  which  Senators  were  “chosen  [in  each  State]  by  the
Legislature thereof.”  Art. I, §3; see post, at 1, 8–9, 19.  If 
we are right, he asks, why did popular election proponents 
resort to the amending process instead of simply interpret­
ing  “the  Legislature”  to  mean  “the  people”?    Post,  at  1. 
Smiley, as just indicated, answers that question.  Article I, 
§3,  gave  state  legislatures  “a  function  different  from  that 
of  lawgiver,”  285  U. S.,  at  365;  it  made  each  of  them  “an
electoral  body”  charged  to  perform  that  function  to  the 
exclusion of other participants, ibid.  So too, of the ratify­
ing  function.    As  we  explained  in  Hawke,  “the  power  to 
legislate in the enactment of the laws of a State is derived
from the people of the State.”  253 U. S., at 230.  Ratifica­
tion, however, “has its source in the Federal Constitution” 
and is not “an act of legislation within the proper sense of 
the word.”  Id., at 229–230. 

Constantly  resisted  by  THE  CHIEF  JUSTICE,  but  well 
understood  in  opinions  that  speak  for  the  Court:  “[T]he
meaning of the word ‘legislature,’ used several times in the 
Federal Constitution, differs according to the connection in
which  it  is  employed,  depend[ent]  upon  the  character  of
the  function  which  that  body  in  each  instance  is  called 
upon to exercise.”  Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. v. United 
States,  286  U. S.  427,  434  (1932)  (citing  Smiley,  285 
U. S. 355).  Thus “the Legislature” comprises the referen­
dum  and  the  Governor’s  veto  in  the  context  of  regulating
congressional  elections.  Hildebrant,  see  supra,  at  15–16; 
Smiley,  see  supra,  at  17–18.    In  the  context  of  ratifying