Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 40.0

2 

MOORE v. HARPER 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

I 
Here is the case before us in a nutshell: A group of plain-
tiffs  sued  various  state  officials under  state  law.    The  de-
fendants raised both state-law and federal-law defenses.  In 
the interlocutory judgment below, the State Supreme Court
rejected  both  defenses  and  remanded  for  further  proceed-
ings.  We granted review to consider the defendants’ federal
defense.  But  then,  in  subsequent  proceedings,  the  state
court  revisited  defendants’  alternative  state-law  defense 
and held that it was meritorious.  As a result, the court fi-
nally adjudicated the whole case in the defendants’ favor,
dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice.

This is a straightforward case of mootness.  The federal 
defense  no  longer  makes  any  difference  to  this  case—
whether we agree with the defense, disagree with it, or say
nothing at all, the final judgment in this litigation will be
exactly the same.  The majority does not seriously contest 
that fact.  Even so, it asserts jurisdiction to decide this free-
floating defense that affects no live claim for relief, reason-
ing that a justiciable case or controversy exists as long as 
its  opinion  can  in  any  way  “alter  the  presently  operative
statutes of ” a State.  Ante, at 7 (internal quotation marks 
omitted).  By its own lights, the majority “is acting not as 
an Article III court,” Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, 592 U. S. 
___, ___ (2021) (ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting) (slip op., at 3),
but as an ad hoc branch of a state legislature.  That is em-
phatically not our job.  Compare U. S. Const., Art. III, §1, 
with N. C. Const., Art. II, §1. 

A 
To review the history of this case is to demonstrate that
the question presented is moot.  In 2021, the North Carolina 
General Assembly passed an Act to redistrict the State for
elections to the U. S. House of Representatives.  Plaintiffs-
respondents filed an action in state court, seeking to enjoin
state elections officials (defendants-respondents here) from