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16 

MOORE v. HARPER 

Opinion of the Court 

plan.  285 U. S. 355, 361 (1932).  Following the 15th decen-
nial census in 1930, Minnesota lost one seat in its federal 
congressional  delegation.  The  State’s  legislature  divided 
Minnesota’s then nine congressional districts in 1931 and 
sent its Act to the Governor for his approval.  The Governor 
vetoed the plan pursuant to his authority under the State’s 
Constitution.  But the Minnesota Secretary of State never-
theless  began  to  implement  the  legislature’s  map  for  up-
coming elections.  A citizen sued, contending that the legis-
lature’s  map  “was  a  nullity  in  that,  after  the  Governor’s 
veto, it was not repassed by the legislature as required by
law.”  Id., at 362.  The Minnesota Supreme Court disagreed.
In its view, “the authority so given by” the Elections Clause 
“is unrestricted, unlimited, and absolute.”  State ex rel. Smi-
ley v. Holm, 184 Minn. 228, 242, 238 N. W. 494, 501 (1931). 
The Elections Clause, it held, conferred upon the legislature
“the exclusive right to redistrict” such that its actions were 
“beyond the reach of the judiciary.”  Id., at 243, 238 N. W., 
at 501. 

We unanimously reversed.  A state legislature’s “exercise 
of . . . authority” under the Elections Clause, we held, “must
be in accordance with the method which the State has pre-
scribed  for  legislative  enactments.”    Smiley,  285  U. S.,  at 
367.  Nowhere  in  the  Federal  Constitution  could  we  find 
“provision  of  an  attempt  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 has provided that
laws shall be enacted.”  Id., at 368. 

Smiley  relied  on  founding-era  provisions,  constitutional
structure, and historical practice,  each of which we found
persuasive.  Two States at the time of the founding provided
a veto power, restrictions that were “well known.”  Ibid. (cit-
ing provisions in Massachusetts and New York).  Subjecting
state legislatures to such a limitation “was no more incon-
gruous  with  the  grant  of  legislative  authority  to  regulate 
congressional elections than the fact that the Congress in