Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1314_3ea4.pdf
Page Number: 79.0

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ARIZONA STATE LEGISLATURE v. ARIZONA 

INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING COMM’N
 
THOMAS, J., dissenting
 

term  limits  on  that  State’s  Members  of  Congress,  finding
“little  significance”  in  the  fact  that  such  term  limits  were 
adopted by popular referendum.  U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. 
Thornton, 514 U. S. 779, 822, n. 32 (1995).  One year later,
it held unconstitutional a ballot initiative that would have 
prevented  the  enactment  of  laws  under  which  “ ‘homosex-
ual,  lesbian  or  bisexual  orientation,  conduct,  practices  or 
relationships  [would]  constitute  or  otherwise  be  the  basis 
of  . . .  any  minority  status,  quota  preferences,  protected
status  or  claim  of  discrimination.’ ”    Romer  v.  Evans,  517 
U. S. 620, 624 (1996).  The Court neither gave deference to 
state  lawmaking  nor  said  anything  about  the  virtues  of
direct democracy.  It instead declared that the result of the 
ballot initiative was an aberration—that “[i]t is not within 
our constitutional tradition to enact laws of this sort.”  Id., 
at  633.  But  if  “constitutional  tradition”  is  the  measuring
stick,  then  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  the  Court  con-
dones  a  redistricting  practice  that  was  unheard  of  for 
nearly  200  years  after  the  ratification  of  the  Constitution 
and  that  conflicts  with  the  express  constitutional  com-
mand  that  election  laws  “be  prescribed  in  each  State  by
the Legislature thereof,” Art. I, §4.

The  Court’s  lack  of  respect  for  ballot  initiatives  is  evi-
dent not only in what it has done, but in what it has failed 
to  do.  Just  this  Term,  the  Court  repeatedly  refused  to
review cases in which the Courts of Appeals had set aside
state  laws  passed  through  ballot  initiative.  See,  e.g., 
County  of  Maricopa  v.  Lopez-Valenzuela,  575  U. S.  ___ 
(2015)  (THOMAS,  J.,  dissenting  from  denial  of  certiorari) 
(state  constitutional  amendment  denying  bail  for  illegal
aliens arrested in certain circumstances); Herbert v. Kitchen, 
574  U. S.  ___  (2014)  (state  constitutional  amendment 
retaining  traditional  definition  of  marriage);  Smith  v. 
Bishop, 574 U. S. ___ (2014) (same); Rainey v. Bostic, 574 
U. S.  ___  (2014)  (same);  Walker  v.  Wolf,  574  U. S.  ___ 
(2014) (same).  It did so despite warnings that its indiffer-