Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 59

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

21 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

State; they defined what acts, performed by which constitu-
tional  actors,  constituted  an  “exercise  of  the  lawmaking 
power.”  Smiley, 285 U. S., at 364; cf. U. S. Const., Art. I, §7, 
cl. 2 (describing the processes upon completion of which a 
bill  “become[s]  a  Law”).    In  other  words,  those  cases  ad-
dressed how to identify “the Legislature” of each State.  But, 
nothing in their holdings speaks at all to whether the peo-
ple of a State can impose substantive limits on the times,
places, and manners that a procedurally complete exercise 
of the lawmaking power may validly prescribe.  These are 
simply different questions: “There is a difference between 
how and what.”  J. Kirby, Limitations on the Power of State
Legislatures  Over  Presidential  Elections,  27  Law  &  Con-
temp. Prob. 495, 503 (1962). 

This is not an arbitrary distinction, but one rooted in the 
logic of petitioners’ argument.  No one here contends that 
the  Elections  Clause  creates  state  legislatures  or  defines 
“the legislative process” in any State.  Smiley, 285 U. S., at 
369.  Thus, while the Elections Clause confers a lawmaking 
power,  “the  exercise  of  th[at]  authority  must”  follow  “the 
method  which  the  State  has  prescribed  for  legislative  en-
actments.”  Id., at 367.  But, if the power in question is not 
original to the people of each State and is conferred upon 
the constituted legislature of the State, then it follows that 
the  people of  the  State  may  not  dictate  what  laws  can  be 
enacted under that power—precisely as they may not dic-
tate what constitutional amendments their legislatures can 
ratify under Article V.  See Leser, 258 U. S., at 137.11  Ac-

—————— 

11 The majority states that Smiley “already distinguished” Leser as in-
volving a nonlawmaking function.  Ante, at 21.  But Smiley distinguished 
the  “electoral,”  “ratifying,”  and  “consenting”  functions  of  state  legisla-
tures from their “lawmaking” function under the Elections Clause, 285 
U. S., at 365–366, only to explain why the last function must be “exer-