Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 57.0

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

19 

THOMAS, J., dissenting 

To be sure, the precise constitutional significance of the 
word  “Legislature”  depends  on  “the  function  to  be  per-
formed” under the provision in question.  Smiley, 285 U. S., 
at 365.  Because “the function contemplated by” the Elec-
tions  Clause  “is  that  of  making  laws,”  id.,  at  366,  this 
Court’s Elections Clause cases have consistently looked to 
a  State’s  written  constitution  to  determine  the  constitu-
tional actors in whom lawmaking power is vested.  See Ar-
izona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistrict-
ing  Comm’n,  576  U. S.  787,  795–796,  814  (2015);  Smiley, 
285 U. S., at 363; Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U. S. 
565, 566–568 (1916).8  The definitions that most precisely 
explain  this  Court’s  holdings  were  given  in  a  state-court 
case  that  anticipated  Hildebrant  and  Smiley  by  several 
years:  “[T]he  word  ‘Legislature,’  as  used  in  [the  Elections 
Clause] means the lawmaking body or power of the state, 
as established by the state Constitution,” or, put differently, 
“that body of persons within a state clothed with authority 

—————— 

8 The only complications with this approach have arisen where a State
Constitution did not vest the legislative power wholly in a single repre-
sentative  body,  as  the  Federal  Constitution  appears  to  presuppose.
Thus, in Hildebrant, the Court rejected as nonjusticiable an argument 
“that  to  include  the  referendum  within  state  legislative  power  for  the 
purpose of apportionment” was “repugnant to” the Elections Clause.  241 
U. S.,  at  569.    Somewhat  similarly,  in  Arizona  State  Legislature,  the 
Court faced a State Constitution “in which the people of a State exercise 
legislative power coextensive with the authority of an institutional legis-
lature,” 576 U. S., at 819, with the majority “see[ing] no constitutional 
barrier to a State’s empowerment of its people by embracing that form of
lawmaking,” id., at 808–809.  As relevant to identifying the State’s “Leg-
islature,” the majority opinion emphasized that Arizona’s written Con-
stitution “ ‘establishes the electorate of Arizona as a coordinate source of 
legislation’ on equal footing with the representative legislative body,” id., 
at 795 (alteration omitted), and thus held that “lawmaking power in Ar-
izona includes the initiative process,” id., at 793; see also id., at 814.  No 
such complications exist in North Carolina, where the State Constitution
simply provides that “[t]he legislative power of the State shall be vested
in the General Assembly.”  Art. II, §1.