Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1314_3ea4.pdf
Page Number: 64.0

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

25 

ROBERTS, C. J., dissenting 

The  Court  also  overstates  the  effects  of  enforcing  the
plain meaning of the Constitution in this case.  There is no 
dispute that Arizona may continue to use its Commission
to  draw  lines  for  state  legislative  elections.    The  repre-
sentatives chosen in those elections will then be responsi-
ble for congressional redistricting as members of the state 
legislature, so the work of the Commission will continue to 
influence Arizona’s federal representation. 

Moreover,  reading  the  Elections  Clause  to  require  the
involvement  of  the  legislature  will  not  affect  most  other 
redistricting  commissions.    As  the  majority  notes,  many
States  have  commissions  that  play  an  “auxiliary  role”  in 
congressional  redistricting.    Ante,  at  8,  and  nn.  8–9.    But 
in  these  States,  unlike  in  Arizona,  the  legislature  retains 
primary  authority  over  congressional  redistricting.    See 
Brief  for  National  Conference  of  State  Legislatures  as 
Amicus Curiae 3–17. 

The majority also points to a scattered array of election-
related  laws  and  constitutional  provisions  enacted  via
popular  lawmaking  that  it  claims  would  be  “endangered” 
by interpreting the Elections Clause to mean what it says. 
Ante,  at  33.    Reviewing  the  constitutionality  of  these  far-
flung  provisions  is  well  outside  the  scope  of  this  case. 
Suffice it to say that none of them purports to do what the
Arizona Constitution does here: set up an unelected, unac-
countable  institution  that  permanently  and  totally  dis-
places  the  legislature  from  the  redistricting  process. 
“[T]his wolf comes as a wolf.”  Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S. 
654, 699 (1988) (SCALIA, J., dissenting).

Absent from the majority’s portrayal of the high motives
that inspired the Arizona Commission is any discussion of 
—————— 

could  choose  a  20-year-old  Congressman,  a  25-year-old  Senator,  or  a
foreign  President.    But  see  Art. I,  §2,  cl. 2;  §3,  cl. 3;  Art. II,  §1,  cl. 5. 
Term  Limits  instead  relied  on  analysis  of  the  text,  structure,  and 
history  of  the  Constitution—all  factors  that  cut  strongly  against  the 
majority’s position today.