Full name: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al.
Stephen BreyerRuth Bader GinsburgElena KaganAnthony KennedySonia SotomayorSamuel AlitoJohn G. RobertsAntonin ScaliaClarence Thomas Note: Court justices do not represent any political party. The color of each judge's name represents the political party of the president who appointed the judge.
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Voting Rights
What was this case about?
The Supreme Court ruled that an independent committee made up of a state's citizens - rather than the state's legislature - may define that state's congressional districts.
Elected representatives effectively sued their constituents
It typically is a state's legislature that partitions the state into congressional districts. This often leads to more districts that favor the political party in power, rather than providing a fair representation of constituents - a tactic known as gerrymandering.
In 2010, Arizona citizens approved an initiative creating an independent commission to define the state's congressional districts, removing that power from the state legislature.
When the commission approved a new congressional district map in 2012, the legislature sued, claiming the commission was a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution's Election Clause (Article 1 Section 4) states...
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof....
The legislature claimed that clause gives only them the right to define districts. They asked the court to permanently prevent the IRC from adopting, implementing, or enforcing the new congressional district map.
The commission shows how government comes from the people
The technical aspect of the court's decision is that, because the state's Constitution allows for initiatives, the citizens are as much a law-making body as the official state's legislature.
In her majority opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that decision represented what intent of the country's founding documents.
The Framers may not have imagined the modern initiative process in which the people of a State exercise legislative power coextensive with the authority of an institutional legislature. But the invention of the initiative was in full harmony with the Constitution's conception of the people as the font of governmental power. As Madison put it: "The genius of republican liberty seems to demand . . . not only that all power should be derived from the people, but that those intrusted with it should be kept in dependence on the people."
(The Declaration of Independence states)... "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." And our fundamental instrument of government derives its authority from "We the People."
As this Court stated, quoting Hamilton: "[T]he true principle of a republic is, that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.? In this light, it would be perverse to interpret the term "Legislature" in the Elections Clause so as to exclude lawmaking by the people, particularly where such lawmaking is intended to check legislators' ability to choose the district lines they run in, thereby advancing the prospect that Members of Congress will in fact be "chosen . . . by the People of the several States."
Ginsburg concluded...
The people of Arizona turned to the initiative to curb the practice of gerrymandering and, thereby, to ensure that Members of Congress would have "an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people." (Federalist Papers No. 57).
In so acting, Arizona voters sought to restore the core principle of republican government, namely, that the voters should choose their representatives, not the other way around. The Elections Clause does not hinder that endeavor.