Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-248_4fc5.pdf
Page Number: 33

Cite as:  597 U. S. ____ (2022) 

11 

SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting 

burdened  by  misgivings  about  the  law’s  wisdom,”  and
therefore should be allowed to intervene to “give voice to a 
different perspective.”  Ibid.  The implication of the Court’s
holding  is  clear:  The  attorney  general’s  performance  fell
short of representing adequately the State’s interests in the
constitutionality of its law, and for that reason, petitioners 
should be allowed to intervene. 

This is simply wrong.  As a preliminary matter, petition-
ers and state respondents share the same interest: ensuring 
the validity and enforcement of S. B. 824.  Cf. Trbovich v. 
Mine Workers, 404 U. S. 528, 538–539 (1972) (allowing in-
tervention as of right where an intervenor’s interests as an 
individual  union  member  were  “not  identical”  to  those  of 
the existing party in the suit, the Secretary of Labor, who 
sought  to  represent  the  public  interest).    Here,  state  re-
spondents explain that they “represen[t] . . . the State’s in-
terest in defending its laws.”  Brief for State Respondents 
18.  Their counsel, the attorney general, is required to do
the same under North Carolina law.  See N. C. Gen. Stat. 
Ann.  §114–2.  Identically,  petitioners  represent  that  they
seek  to  defend  “the  State’s  vital  interest  in  defending  the
constitutionality of North Carolina’s election laws.”  Brief 
for Petitioners 15–16.  Indeed, petitioners cannot now seek
to represent any unique interest of the General Assembly
in the litigation because they abandoned that argument by
failing to appeal the District Court’s original order denying
intervention on that basis.  By their own admission, then, 
petitioners seek only to represent the State’s interest in de-
fending  state  law,  an  interest  that  state  respondents  al-
ready represent. 

The  Court  insists  that  petitioners’  “perspective”  never-
theless differs from that of state respondents, by focusing
on “defending the law vigorously on the merits without an 
eye to crosscutting administrative concerns” such as obtain-
ing guidance for the administration of upcoming elections.