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Page Number: 3

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

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Syllabus 

neither altered Harper I’s analysis of the federal issue nor negated the 
effect of the Harper I judgment striking down the 2021 plans, that is-
sue both has survived and requires decision by this Court.  Pp. 6–11.

2. The Elections Clause does not vest exclusive and independent au-
thority in state legislatures to set the rules regarding federal elections. 
Marbury  v.  Madison,  1  Cranch  137,  famously  proclaimed  this
Court’s authority to invalidate laws that violate the Federal Constitu-
tion.  But Marbury did not invent the concept of judicial review.  State 
courts  had  already  begun  to  impose  restraints  on  state  legislatures, 
even before the Constitutional Convention, and the practice continued 
to mature during the founding era.  James Madison extolled judicial 
review  as  one  of  the  key  virtues  of  a  constitutional  system,  and  the 
concept of judicial review was so entrenched by the time the Court de-
cided Marbury that Chief Justice Marshall referred to it as one of so-
ciety’s “fundamental principles.”  Id., at 177.. 

The Elections Clause does not carve out an exception to that fun-
damental principle.  When state legislatures prescribe the rules con-
cerning federal elections, they remain subject to the ordinary exercise
of state judicial review.  Pp. 11–26.

(a) In Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U. S. 565, this Court 
examined the Elections Clause’s application to a provision of the Ohio
Constitution  permitting  the State’s  voters to  reject,  by  popular  vote, 
any law enacted by the State’s General Assembly.  This Court upheld 
the  Ohio  Supreme  Court’s  determination  that  the  Federal  Elections 
Clause did not preclude subjecting legislative acts under the Clause to
a popular referendum, rejecting the contention that “to include the ref-
erendum within state legislative power for the purpose of apportion-
ment is repugnant to §4 of Article I [the Elections Clause].”  Id., at 569. 
And in Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, this Court considered the effect 
of a Governor’s veto, pursuant to his authority under the State’s Con-
stitution, of a congressional redistricting plan.  This Court held that 
the  Governor’s  veto  did  not  violate  the  Elections  Clause,  reasoning 
that a state legislature’s “exercise of . . . authority” under the Elections 
Clause “must be in accordance with the method which the State has 
prescribed for legislative enactments.”  Id., at 367.  The Court high-
lighted that the Federal Constitution contained no “provision of an at-
tempt to endow the legislature of the State with power to enact laws
in any manner other than that in which the constitution of the State 
has provided that laws shall be enacted.”  Id., at 368. 

This Court recently reinforced the teachings of Hildebrant and Smi-
ley in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting 
Comm’n, 576 U. S. 787, a case concerning the constitutionality of an
Arizona ballot initiative to amend the State Constitution and to vest 
redistricting  authority  in  an  independent  commission.  Significantly