Cite as: 600 U. S. ____ (2023)
3
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 issue both has survived and requires decision by this Court. Pp. 6–11.
2. The Elections Clause does not vest exclusive and independent authority 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 Constitution. 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 decided Marbury that Chief Justice Marshall referred to it as one of society’s “fundamental principles.” Id., at 177..
The Elections Clause does not carve out an exception to that fundamental principle. When state legislatures prescribe the rules concerning 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 referendum within state legislative power for the purpose of apportionment 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 Constitution, 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 highlighted that the Federal Constitution contained no “provision of an attempt 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 Smiley 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