Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-248_4fc5.pdf
Page Number: 3

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

3 

Syllabus 

House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Sen-
ate,  as  agents  of  the  State,  by  and  through  counsel  of  their  choice,” 
“shall jointly have standing to intervene on behalf of the General As-
sembly as a party in any judicial proceeding challenging a North Car-
olina statute or provision of the North Carolina Constitution.”  N. C. 
Gen. Stat. Ann. §1–72.2(b).  And the State has made plain that it con-
siders the leaders of the General Assembly “necessary parties” to suits
like this one.  §120–32.6(b).

The Board submits that North Carolina law does not afford the leg-
islative leaders authority to represent state interests.  But that argu-
ment is difficult to square with the express statutory language.  Alter-
natively, the Board argues that the statutes authorizing the legislative 
leaders to participate here violate the State Constitution by usurping 
power vested in the executive branch alone.  That logic is hard to fol-
low, however, given the Board’s concession that the legislative leaders 
may intervene permissively under Rule 24(b), and likely as a matter 
of right under Rule 24(a)(2) if the attorney general ceases to defend the 
law. 

The NAACP offers a different reply, pointing out that Rule 24(a)(2)
permits intervention only by “new” parties.  And, it submits, the legis-
lative leaders are already effectively “existing” parties to this suit chal-
lenging the enforcement of state law.  That argument rests on a prem-
ise that is both formally and functionally mistaken.  First, the NAACP 
has not sued the State but only certain state officers, and, so far, the 
legislative leaders are not among them.  Functionally, however, this 
suit implicates North Carolina’s sovereign interests regardless of the 
named parties.  And, where a State chooses to divide its sovereign au-
thority among different officials and authorize their participation in a 
suit challenging state law, a full consideration of the State’s practical
interests may require the involvement of different voices with different 
perspectives.  Pp. 8–13.

(b) Concerning Rule 24(a)(2)’s third requirement, lower courts have
adopted a variety of tests for evaluating whether an existing defendant
already “adequately represent[s]” the same interests a proposed inter-
venor seeks to vindicate.  Here, both the District Court and the en banc 
Court of Appeals improperly applied a “presumption” that the Board
adequately represented the legislative leaders’ interests and held that
the leaders could not overcome this presumption.  But Rule 24(a)(2)’s
test in this regard presents proposed intervenors with only a minimal
challenge: It promises intervention to those who bear an interest that
may be practically impaired or impeded “unless existing parties ade-
quately  represent  that  [same]  interest.”    See,  e.g.,  Trbovich  v.  Mine 
Workers, 404 U. S. 528.  Some lower courts have suggested that a pre-
sumption  of  adequate  representation  remains  appropriate  in  certain