Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 33.0

28 

MOORE v. HARPER 

Opinion of the Court 

constitutional  rights.”  NAACP  v.  Alabama  ex  rel.  Patter-
son, 357 U. S. 449, 457–458 (1958).

Running through each of these examples is the concern
that state courts might read state law in such a manner as 
to circumvent federal constitutional provisions.  Therefore, 
although mindful of the general rule of accepting state court
interpretations of state law, we have tempered such defer-
ence when required by our duty to safeguard limits imposed 
by the Federal Constitution.

Members of this Court last discussed the outer bounds of 
state court review in the present context in Bush v. Gore, 
531 U. S. 98 (2000) (per curiam).  Our decision in that case 
turned on an application of the Equal Protection Clause of
the Fourteenth Amendment.  Id., at 104–105.  In separate
writings, several Justices addressed whether Florida’s Su-
preme Court, in construing provisions of Florida statutory 
law, exceeded the bounds of ordinary judicial review to an 
extent that its interpretation violated the Electors Clause. 
Chief  Justice  Rehnquist,  joined  in  a  concurring  opinion
by JUSTICE THOMAS and Justice Scalia, acknowledged the
usual  deference  we  afford  state  court  interpretations  of 
state  law,  but  noted  “areas  in  which  the  Constitution  re-
quires this Court to undertake an independent, if still def-
erential, analysis of state law.”  Id., at 114.  He declined to 
give effect to interpretations of Florida election laws by the 
Florida Supreme Court that “impermissibly distorted them
beyond what a fair reading required.”  Id., at 115.  Justice 
Souter, for his part, considered whether a state court inter-
pretation “transcends the limits of reasonable statutory in-
terpretation to the point of supplanting the statute enacted
by the ‘legislature’ within the meaning of Article II.”  Id., at 
133  (Souter,  J.,  joined  by  Stevens,  Ginsburg,  and  Breyer,
JJ., dissenting).

We do not adopt these or any other test by which we can
measure state court interpretations of state law in cases im-
plicating the Elections Clause.  The questions presented in