Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1271_3f14.pdf
Page Number: 24.0

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

19 

Opinion of the Court 

power is constrained by “the tenor of the commission under
which it is exercised.”  The Federalist No. 78, at 466; see Tr. 
of Oral Arg. 4. 

This  argument  simply  ignores  the  precedent  just  de-
scribed.  Hildebrant, Smiley, and Arizona State Legislature
each rejected the contention that the Elections Clause vests 
state legislatures with exclusive and independent authority 
when setting the rules governing federal elections. 

The argument advanced by the defendants and the dis-
sent also does not account for the Framers’ understanding 
that  when  legislatures  make  laws,  they  are  bound  by  the 
provisions of the very documents that give them life.  Leg-
islatures, the Framers recognized, “are the mere creatures 
of the State Constitutions, and cannot be greater than their 
creators.”  2  Farrand  88.    “What  are  Legislatures?    Crea-
tures  of  the  Constitution;  they  owe  their  existence  to  the
Constitution:  they  derive  their  powers  from  the  Constitu-
tion:  It  is  their  commission;  and,  therefore,  all  their  acts 
must  be  conformable  to  it,  or  else  they  will  be  void.” 
Vanhorne’s Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 Dall. 304, 308 (Pa. 1795). 
Marbury confirmed this understanding, 1 Cranch, at 176–
177, and nothing in the text of the Elections Clause under-
mines it.  When a state legislature carries out its constitu-
tional power to prescribe rules regulating federal elections,
the “commission under which” it exercises authority is two-
fold.  The  Federalist  No.  78,  at  467.    The  legislature  acts
both as a lawmaking body created and bound by its state
constitution, and as the entity assigned particular author-
ity by the Federal Constitution.  Both constitutions restrain 
the legislature’s exercise of power. 

Turning to our precedents, the defendants quote from our
analysis  of  the  Electors  Clause  in  McPherson  v.  Blacker, 
146 U. S. 1 (1892).  That Clause—similar to the Elections 
Clause—provides  that  “Each  State  shall  appoint,  in  such 
Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a [specified]