Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/14pdf/13-1314_3ea4.pdf
Page Number: 3

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

3 

Syllabus 

Though  four  of  §2a(c)’s  five  default  redistricting  procedures—
operative  only  when  a  State  is  not  “redistricted  in  the  manner  pro-
vided by [state] law”—have become obsolete as a result of this Court’s 
decisions embracing the one-person, one-vote principle, this infirmity
does not bear on the question whether a State has been “redistricted
in the manner provided by [state] law.”  Pp. 19–23. 

(c)  The Elections Clause permits the people of Arizona to provide 
for  redistricting  by  independent  commission.    The  history  and  pur-
pose of the Clause weigh heavily against precluding the people of Ar-
izona  from  creating  a  commission  operating  independently  of  the
state legislature to establish congressional districts.  Such preclusion 
would also run up against the Constitution’s animating principle that 
the people themselves are the originating source of all the powers of 
government.  Pp. 24–35. 

(1) The dominant purpose of the Elections Clause, the histori-
cal record bears out, was to empower Congress to override state elec-
tion rules, not to restrict the way States enact legislation.  See Inter 
Tribal  Council  of  Ariz., 570  U. S.,  at  ___.   Ratification  arguments  in 
support  of  congressional  oversight  focused  on  potential  abuses  by
state  politicians,  but  the  legislative  processes  by  which  the  States 
could  exercise  their  initiating  role  in  regulating  congressional  elec-
tions occasioned no debate.  Pp. 25–27. 

(2) There is no suggestion that the Election Clause, by specify-
ing  “the  Legislature  thereof,”  required  assignment  of  congressional 
redistricting authority to the State’s representative body.  It is char-
acteristic of the federal system that States retain autonomy to estab-
lish  their  own  governmental  processes  free  from  incursion  by  the 
Federal  Government.    See,  e.g.,  Alden  v.  Maine,  527  U. S.  706,  752. 
“Through the structure of its government, and the character of those
who exercise government authority, a State defines itself as a sover-
eign.”  Gregory  v.  Ashcroft,  501  U. S.  452,  460.    Arizona  engaged  in 
definition of that kind when its people placed both the initiative pow-
er and the AIRC’s redistricting authority in the portion of the Arizo-
na  Constitution  delineating  the  State’s  legislative  authority,  Ariz. 
Const., Art. IV.  The Elections Clause should not be read to single out
federal elections as the one area in which States may not use citizen
initiatives  as  an  alternative  legislative  process.    And  reading  the
Clause  to  permit  the  use  of  the  initiative  to  control  state  and  local
elections  but  not  federal  elections  would  “deprive  several  States  of
the  convenience  of  having  the  elections  for  their  own  governments 
and for the national government” held at the same times and places, 
and in the same manner.  The Federalist No. 61, p. 374 (Hamilton). 
Pp. 27–30. 

(3) The  Framers  may  not  have  imagined  the  modern  initiative