Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1314_3ea4.pdf
Page Number: 78.0

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

1 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 13–1314 
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ARIZONA STATE LEGISLATURE, APPELLANT v.
 
ARIZONA INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING 

COMMISSION ET AL. 

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 
THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

[June 29, 2015] 

JUSTICE  THOMAS,  with  whom  JUSTICE  SCALIA  joins,

dissenting. 

Reading today’s opinion, one would think the Court is a 
great  defender  of  direct  democracy  in  the  States.    As  it 
reads “the Legislature” out of the Times, Places and Man-
ner  Clause,  U. S.  Const.,  Art.  I,  §4,  the  majority  offers  a
paean to the ballot initiative.  It speaks in glowing terms 
of  the  “characteristic  of  our  federal  system  that  States 
retain  autonomy  to  establish  their  own  governmental 
processes.”  Ante, at 27.  And it urges “[d]eference to state
lawmaking”  so  that  States  may  perform  their  vital  func-
tion as “ ‘laboratories’ ”of democracy.  Ante, at 28. 

These sentiments are difficult to accept.  The conduct of 
the  Court  in  so  many  other  cases  reveals  a  different  atti-
tude toward the States in general and ballot initiatives in
particular.    Just  last  week,  in  the  antithesis  of  deference 
to  state  lawmaking  through  direct  democracy,  the  Court
cast  aside  state  laws  across  the  country—many  of  which 
were  enacted  through  ballot  initiative—that  reflected  the 
traditional definition of marriage.  See Obergefell v. Hodges, 
ante, p. ___.

This  Court’s  tradition  of  disdain  for  state  ballot  initia-
tives  goes  back  quite  a  while.    Two  decades  ago,  it  held 
unconstitutional  an  Arkansas  ballot  initiative  imposing