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Page Number: 60.0

22 

MOORE v. HARPER 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

cordingly, if petitioners’ premises hold, then state constitu-
tions may specify who constitute “the Legislature” and pre-
scribe  how  legislative power  is  exercised,  but  they  cannot 
control what substantive laws can be made for federal elec-
tions. 

The majority indicates that it does not perceive this dis-
tinction between “substantive” and “procedural” rules, see 
ante,  at  23–24,12  illustrating  its  doubts  with  a  rhetorical
question: “When a governor vetoes a bill because of a disa-
greement with its policy consequences, has the governor ex-
ercised  a  procedural  or  substantive  restraint  on  lawmak-
ing?”  Ante,  at  24.  The  answer  is  straightforward:  The 
power of approving or vetoing bills is “a part of the legisla-
tive  process”  because  it  is  “a  part  in  the  making  of  state
laws.”  Smiley,  285  U. S.,  at  368–369;  see  also  INS  v. 
Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 933, 951, 954, 957, n. 22, 958 (1983)
(repeatedly referring to bicameralism and presentment as 
—————— 
cise[d] . . . in accordance with the [State’s] method . . . for legislative en-
actments,” id., at 367, including “the participation of the Governor wher-
ever the state constitution provided for such participation as part of the 
process of making laws,” id., at 370.  Nothing in Smiley even hints that 
a federally delegated power fails to “transcen[d] limitations sought to be 
imposed by the people of a State” simply because it is a lawmaking func-
tion.  Leser, 258 U. S., at 137. 

12 This  admission  carries  troubling  implications  for  other  fields,  as 
comparable  “distinction[s]  between  procedure  and  substance  [are]  not 
unknown  in  the  law.”  United  States  v.  Kras,  409  U. S.  434,  463,  n.  6 
(1973) (Marshall, J., dissenting).  For example, our habeas corpus juris-
prudence has long distinguished “substantive” constitutional rules from
“procedural” ones.  Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U. S. 348, 352, 353 (2004). 
Our  sentencing  appellate  review  jurisprudence  similarly  recognizes  a 
distinction between the “procedura[l] sound[ness]” of a sentencing deci-
sion and “the substantive reasonableness of the sentence imposed.”  Gall 
v. United States, 552 U. S. 38, 51 (2007).  And, no less essential a statute 
than  the  Rules  Enabling Act  presupposes  a  meaningful  distinction  be-
tween  “rules  of  practice  and  procedure”  and  matters  of  “substantive 
right.”  28 U. S. C. §§2072(a) and (b).  Indeed, the constitutionality of the 
Act rests upon this very distinction.  See Hanna v. Plumer, 380 U. S. 460, 
470–472 (1965); Sibbach v. Wilson & Co., 312 U. S. 1, 9–10 (1941).