Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1314_3ea4.pdf
Page Number: 33.0

Cite as:  576 U. S. ____ (2015) 

29 

Opinion of the Court 

Shiel, H. R. Misc. Doc. No. 57, at 349–352 (concluding that
Oregon’s  Constitution  prevailed  over  any  conflicting  leg- 
islative  measure  setting  the  date  for  a  congressional 
election).

THE  CHIEF  JUSTICE,  in  dissent,  maintains  that,  under 
the  Elections  Clause,  the  state  legislature  can  trump  any
initiative-introduced  constitutional  provision  regulating 
federal  elections.    He  extracts  support  for  this  position 
from Baldwin v. Trowbridge, 2 Bartlett Contested Election 
Cases, H. R. Misc. Doc. No. 152, 41st Cong., 2d Sess., 46–
47 (1866).  See post, at 15–16.  There, Michigan voters had 
amended the State Constitution to require votes to be cast
within a resident’s township or ward.  The Michigan Leg­
islature, however, passed a law permitting soldiers to vote
in  other  locations.  One  candidate  would  win  if  the  State 
Constitution’s requirement controlled; his opponent would 
prevail  under  the  Michigan  Legislature’s  prescription.
The  House  Elections  Committee,  in  a  divided  vote,  ruled 
that,  under  the  Elections  Clause,  the  Michigan  Legisla­
ture had the paramount power.

As the minority report in Baldwin pointed out, however,
the  Supreme  Court  of  Michigan  had  reached  the  opposite 
conclusion,  holding,  as  courts  generally  do,  that  state
legislation in direct conflict with the State’s constitution is
void.  Baldwin,  H. R.  Misc.  Doc.  No.  152,  at  50.    The 
Baldwin  majority’s  ruling,  furthermore,  appears  in  ten­
sion with the Election Committee’s unanimous decision in 
Shiel  just  five  years  earlier.    (The  Committee,  we  repeat,
“ha[d]  no  doubt  that  the  constitution  of  the  State  ha[d]
fixed,  beyond  the  control  of  the  legislature,  the  time  for
holding [a congressional] election.”  Shiel, H. R. Misc. Doc. 
No. 57, at 351.)  Finally, it was perhaps not entirely acci­
dental that the candidate the Committee declared winner 
in Baldwin belonged to the same political party as all but 
one member of the House Committee majority responsible
for the decision.  See U. S. House of Representatives Con­