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Page Number: 6

4 

MOORE v. HARPER 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

that this Court has no authority to overrule a state supreme 
court’s interpretation of state law. 

Both sides advance serious arguments, but based on the 
briefing we have received, my judgment is that the appli-
cants’ argument is stronger.  The question presented is one 
of  federal  not  state  law  because  the  state  legislature,  in 
promulgating rules for congressional elections, acts pursu-
ant to a constitutional mandate under the Elections Clause. 
Cf.  Bush,  531  U. S.,  at  113  (Rehnquist,  C. J.,  concurring) 
(compliance  with  the  Electors  Clause  “presents  a  federal 
constitutional question”).  And if the language of the Elec-
tions Clause is taken seriously, there must be some limit on 
the authority of state courts to countermand actions taken
by state legislatures when they are prescribing rules for the
conduct of federal elections.  I think it is likely that the ap-
plicants would succeed in showing that the North Carolina 
Supreme Court exceeded those limits. 

The applicants will be irreparably harmed if a stay is not 
granted  because  they  will  be  deprived  of  their  constitu-
tional  prerogative  to  draw  the  congressional map  in  their
State, and the public interest will be disserved if the 2022 
congressional  elections  in  North  Carolina  are  held  using 
districts that we eventually determine were unconstitution-
ally imposed.

This matter came to us only seven days before the dead-
line for candidates to file on March 4, but promptly granting 
a  stay  would  have  been  only  minimally  disruptive  in  the
circumstances here.  The General Assembly’s remedial map 
provides that the first map enacted by the Assembly would 
become effective by operation of law if we “stay[ed]” the or-
ders  of  the  North  Carolina  Supreme  Court.    What  candi-
dates  were  required  to  do  by  March  4  was  to  file  a  short
form,  and  the  only  change  that  they  would  have  been  re-
quired to make had we granted the application was to en-
sure that the form they submitted specified the district in
which  they  were  running  under  the  first  plan  adopted  by