Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission
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''Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission'', 576 U.S. 787 (2015), was a
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...
case where the Court upheld the right of
Arizona Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
voters to remove the authority to draw election districts from the Arizona State Legislature and vest it in an independent
redistricting commission In the United States, a redistricting commission is a body, other than the usual state legislative bodies, established to draw electoral district boundaries. Generally the intent is to avoid gerrymandering, or at least the appearance of gerryma ...
. In doing so, the Court expressly rejected a nascent version of the
independent state legislature theory The independent state legislature theory or independent state legislature doctrine (ISL) posits that the Constitution of the United States delegates authority to regulate Federal elections in the United States, federal elections within a state t ...
.


Background

The Arizona Constitution (Art. IV, pt. 1, §1) lets voters adopt laws and constitutional amendments by
ballot initiative In political science, an initiative (also known as a popular initiative or citizens' initiative) is a means by which a petition signed by a certain number of registered voters can force a government to choose either to enact a law or hold a p ...
. Arizona voters adopted Proposition 106 in 2000 to address the problem of
gerrymandering In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...
by creating the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC). The Arizona Legislature sued in 2012, arguing that the creation of the AIRC violated the Elections Clause of the U. S. Constitution, which says “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.” The
United States District Court for the District of Arizona The United States District Court for the District of Arizona (in case citations, D. Ariz.) is the U.S. district court that covers the state of Arizona. It is under the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The District was est ...
, dividing two to one, rejected the Legislature's complaint, finding that prior Supreme Court decisions “demonstrate that the word ‘Legislature’ in the Elections Clause refers to the legislative process used in state, determined by that state's own constitution and laws,” and that the lawmaking power in Arizona “plainly includes the power to enact laws through initiative”.


Opinion

Justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg ( ; ; March 15, 1933September 18, 2020) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by Presiden ...
delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Justices
Anthony Kennedy Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1988 until his retirement in 2018. He was nominated to the court in 1987 by Presid ...
, Stephen Breyer,
Sonia Sotomayor Sonia Maria Sotomayor (, ; born June 25, 1954) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since ...
, and Elena Kagan joined. The Court affirmed the District Court's ruling, holding that " districting is a legislative function to be performed in accordance with the State’s prescriptions for lawmaking, which may include 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." The court also noted that in 1911, Congress amended section 2a(c) of Title Two of the United States Code, which provided for federal redistricting if states fail to act. Recognizing "that States had supplemented the representative legislature mode of lawmaking with a direct lawmaking role for the people," Congress "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.'". In support of its holding, the court cited passages from the Arizona Constitution which read " y law which may be enacted by the Legislature under this Constitution may be enacted by the people under the Initiative"(A.Z. Const. Art. XXII, §14). The majority also reviewed several dictionaries from the approximate time of the framing of the US Constitution. Instead of a narrow definition of "legislature" meaning a state's senators and representatives these dictionaries defined "legislature" broadly, as "the power that makes laws".


Dissents

Chief Justice
John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including '' Nat ...
filed a dissenting opinion, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia,
Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1 ...
, and Samuel Alito. Scalia and Thomas each wrote additional dissents which the other joined. Roberts concluded that the term “the Legislature” in the Elections Clause unambiguously refers to a representative body as "confirmed by other provisions of the Constitution that use the same term in the same way. When seeking to discern the meaning of a word in the Constitution, there is no better dictionary than the rest of the Constitution itself." Justice Scalia explained at length why he would not have granted standing in this case, then added " rmally, having arrived at that conclusion, I would express no opinion on the merits unless my vote was necessary to enable the Court to produce a judgment. In the present case, however, the majority’s resolution of the merits question ('legislature' means 'the people') is so outrageously wrong, so utterly devoid of textual or historic support, so flatly in contradiction of prior Supreme Court cases, so obviously the willful product of hostility to districting by state legislatures, that I cannot avoid adding my vote to the devastating dissent of the Chief Justice." Justice Thomas contrasted the court's support for direct democracy in this case with the overturning of many state voter referendums opposing same sex marriage in ''
Obergefell v. Hodges ''Obergefell v. Hodges'', ( ), is a landmark LGBT rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protect ...
,''. decided days earlier.


Impact

The case has formed the basis of action by the Supreme Court in at least one other case, ''Hickenlooper v. Kerr''.''John Hickenlooper, Governor of Colorado v. Andy Kerr, et al.'', no. 14-460, October 22, 2014 (
docket Docket may refer to: * Docket (court), the official schedule of proceedings in lawsuits pending in a court of law. *Agenda (meeting) or docket, a list of meeting activities in the order in which they are to be taken up *Receipt A receipt (a ...
.
''Hickenlooper'' was a petition for certiorari brought by
John Hickenlooper John Wright Hickenlooper Jr. (; born February 7, 1952) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Colorado since 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 42nd governor of Colorado from 2011 to 20 ...
in his capacity as
governor of Colorado The governor of Colorado is the head of government of the U.S. state of Colorado. The governor is the head of the executive branch of Colorado's state government and is charged with enforcing state laws. The governor has the power to either app ...
, as part of a long-running litigation over the Taxpayer Bill of Rights. On June 30, 2015, the Court issued a
grant, vacate, remand order A grant, vacate, remand order (GVR order) is a type of order issued by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court grants a petition for certiorari, vacates the decision of the court below, and remands the case for further proceeding ...
in the case, in which it granted the petition,
vacate A vacated judgment (also known as vacatur relief) makes a previous legal judgment legally void. A vacated judgment is usually the result of the judgment of an appellate court, which overturns, reverses, or sets aside the judgment of a lower court. ...
d the decision below by the Tenth Circuit, and remanded it to the lower court for reconsideration in light of ''Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission''.


See also

*
List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 576 References External links * https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinions.aspx {{SCOTUSCases, 576 Lists of 2014 term United States Supreme Court opinions ...
* ''
Moore v. Harper ''Moore v. Harper'' is an ongoing United States Supreme Court case related to the independent state legislature theory (ISL), arising from the redistricting of North Carolina's districts by the North Carolina legislature following the 2020 cens ...
''


References


External links

* * {{Arizona United States Supreme Court cases United States Supreme Court cases of the Roberts Court Arizona ballot measures Legal history of Arizona Redistricting commissions 2015 in United States case law 2015 in Arizona United States Constitution Article One case law United States electoral redistricting case law