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ARIZONA STATE LEGISLATURE v. ARIZONA 
INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING COMM’N
 
Syllabus
 

1. The  Arizona  Legislature  has  standing  to  bring  this  suit.    In 
claiming that Proposition 106 stripped it of its alleged constitutional
prerogative  to  engage  in  redistricting  and  that  its  injury  would  be
remedied  by  a  court  order  enjoining  the  proposition’s  enforcement, 
the Legislature has shown injury that is ‘concrete and particularized’ 
and ‘actual or imminent,’ ” Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 
520  U. S.  43,  64,  “fairly  traceable  to  the  challenged  action,”  and  “re-
dressable  by  a  favorable  ruling,”  Clapper  v.  Amnesty  Int’l  USA,  568 
U. S. ___, ___.  Specifically, Proposition 106, together with the Arizo-
na Constitution’s ban on efforts by the Arizona Legislature to under-
mine  the  purposes  of  an  initiative,  would  “completely  nullif[y]”  any 
vote by the Legislature, now or “in the future,” purporting to adopt a
redistricting plan.  Raines v. Byrd, 521 U. S. 811, 823–824.  Pp. 9–15.

2. The  Elections  Clause  and  2  U. S. C.  §2a(c)  permit  Arizona’s  use 

of a commission to adopt congressional districts.  Pp. 15–35.

(a) Redistricting  is  a  legislative  function  to  be  performed  in  ac-
cordance with the State’s prescriptions for lawmaking, which may in-
clude the referendum, Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U. S. 565, 
567,  and  the  Governor’s  veto,  Smiley  v.  Holm,  285  U. S.  355,  369. 
While exercise of the initiative was not at issue in this Court’s prior 
decisions, there is no constitutional barrier to a State’s empowerment 
of its people by embracing that form of lawmaking.  Pp. 15–19. 

(b) Title 2 U. S. C. §2a(c)—which provides that, “[u]ntil a State is
redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof after any ap-
portionment,”  it  must  follow  federally  prescribed  redistricting  proce-
dures—permits  redistricting  in  accord  with  Arizona’s  initiative. 
From 1862 through 1901, apportionment Acts required a State to fol-
low  federal  procedures  unless  “the  [state]  legislature”  drew  district 
lines.  In 1911, Congress, recognizing that States had  supplemented 
the representative legislature mode of lawmaking with a direct law-
making role for the people, replaced the reference to redistricting by
the state “legislature” with a reference to redistricting of a State “in
the manner provided by the laws thereof.”  §4, 37 Stat. 14.  The Act’s 
legislative  history  “leaves  no  . . .  doubt,”  Hildebrant,  241  U. S.,  at 
568,  that  the  change  was  made  to  safeguard  to  “each  state  full  au-
thority  to  employ  in  the  creation  of  congressional  districts  its  own
laws and regulations.”  47 Cong. Rec. 3437.  “If they include the initi-
ative, it is included.”  Id., at 3508.  Congress used virtually identical
language in enacting §2a(c) in 1941.  This provision also accords full 
respect to the redistricting procedures adopted by the States.  Thus, 
so long as a State has “redistricted in the manner provided by the law
thereof”—as  Arizona  did  by  utilizing  the  independent  commission 
procedure  in  its  Constitution—the  resulting  redistricting  plan  be-
comes the presumptively governing map.