Opinion of the Court
proceed to the merits.[1]
III
On the merits, we instructed the parties to address this question: Do the Elections Clause of the United States Constitution and 2 U. S. C. §2a(c) permit Arizona’s use of a commission to adopt congressional districts? The Elections Clause is set out at the start of this opinion, supra, at 2. Section 2a(c) provides:
“Until a State is redistricted in the manner provided by the law thereof after any apportionment, the Representatives to which such State is entitled under such apportionment shall be elected in the following manner: [setting out five federally prescribed redistricting procedures].”
Before focusing directly on the statute and constitutional prescriptions in point, we summarize this Court’s precedent relating to appropriate state decisionmakers for redistricting purposes. Three decisions compose the relevant case law: Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U. S. 565 (1916); Hawke v. Smith (No. 1), 253 U. S. 221 (1920); and Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355 (1932).
A
Davis v. Hildebrant involved an amendment to the Constitution of Ohio vesting in the people the right, exercisable by referendum, to approve or disapprove by popular vote any law enacted by the State’s legislature. A 1915 Act redistricting the State for the purpose of congressional
- ↑ Justice Thomas, on the way to deciding that the Arizona Legislature lacks standing, first addresses the merits. In so doing, he overlooks that, in the cases he features, it was entirely immaterial whether the law involved was adopted by a representative body or by the people, through exercise of the initiative.
He forgets that the party invoking federal-court jurisdiction in this case, and inviting our review, is the Arizona State Legislature.
