Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 63

Cite as:  600 U. S. ____ (2023) 

25 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

Electors Clause question was whether, in doing so, the state
court had departed from “the clearly expressed intent of the 
legislature,”  531  U. S.,  at  120  (Rehnquist,  C. J.,  concur-
ring),  “impermissibly  distort[ing]”  the  legislature’s  enact-
ments “beyond what a fair reading required,” id., at 115.  In 
Harper  I,  by  contrast,  there  was  no  doubt  that  the  state
court departed from the clearly expressed intent of the leg-
islature; it rejected the legislature’s enactment as unconsti-
tutional. 

By doing so, today’s majority concludes, Harper I did not 
commit per se error, as the Elections Clause permits state 
courts to apply substantive state-constitutional provisions 
to the times, places, and manner of federal elections.  At the 
same time, state courts are warned that they operate under 
federal-court  supervision,  lest  they  “transgress  the  ordi-
nary  bounds  of  judicial  review  such  that  they  arrogate  to
themselves the power vested in state legislatures to regu-
late federal elections.”  Ante, at 29.  Thus, under the major-
ity’s  framework,  it  seems  clear  that  the  statutory-
interpretation review forecast in Bush (or some version of 
it) is to be extended to state constitutional law. 

In this way, the majority opens a new field for Bush-style
controversies  over  state  election  law—and  a  far  more  un-
certain  one.  Though  some  state  constitutions  are  more
“proli[x]” than the Federal Constitution, it is still a general 
feature  of  constitutional  text  that  “only  its  great  outlines
should be marked.”  McCulloch, 4 Wheat., at 407.  When “it 
is  a  constitution  [courts]  are  expounding,”  ibid.,  not  a  de-
tailed statutory scheme, the standards to judge the fairness 
of a given interpretation are typically fewer and less defi-
nite. 

Nonetheless,  the  majority’s  framework  appears  to  de-
mand that federal courts develop some generalized concept 
of “the bounds of ordinary judicial review,” ante, at 28; ap-
ply  it  to  the  task  of  constitutional  interpretation  within 
each State; and make that concept their rule of decision in