One of the important Supreme Court cases currently being briefed (with oral argument set for March), Arizona Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission, involves the question whether the U.S. Constitution and congressional statutes permit the people of a state to implement an initiative creating an independent redistricting commission (IRC)—i.e., one that is not controllable by the elected state legislature—to devise congressional districts. Arizona voters passed just such an initiative in 2000, and the elected Arizona legislature (acting as a body) has now brought the case to the Supreme Court, arguing primarily that the so-called Elections Clause of Article I of the Constitution (Article I, section 4) prevents a state from divesting district-drawing power from the elected state legislature. The Arizona legislature (represented by former Solicitor General Paul Clement) has filed its brief in the Court, and the IRC (also represented by a former Solicitor General, Seth Waxman) will file its written argument very soon. In the space below, I analyze the merits portion of Mr. Clement’s brief on behalf of the Arizona legislature, and point out why I think it fails to demonstrate that the IRC’s creation and powers violate federal law. (Another part of Mr. Clement’s brief, addressing whether the Arizona legislature has “standing” in federal court to assert a challenge to the IRC at all, raises interesting questions of its own, but those will have to await another day.)
The Elections Clause of the Constitution reads in relevant part: “The [districts for] 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 . . . .”
And an important federal statute says that “u]ntil 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 [a particular way].” 2 U.S.C. § 2a(c) (emphasis added).
Mr. Clement’s argument against the IRC is pretty straightforward. He contends that the term “legislature” in Article I refers, as a matter of constitutional text, history, and policy, specifically to the elected body of regular legislators of the state, and if another body—the IRC—is empowered to do the districting instead, the elected legislature has been improperly divested of its constitutionally conferred prerogative. As the brief observes, quoting from a case (Hawke v. Smith), “[t]he term ‘the legislature’ . . . ‘was not a term of uncertain meaning when incorporated into the Constitution,’ and ‘what it meant when adopted it still means,’ namely, ‘the representative body which made the laws of the people.’” The brief adds that this precise wording by the framers was motivated by their “admiration for representative democracy and skepticism for other forms of government, including direct democracy.” The brief then goes on to explain why “the IRC is not ‘a legislature’ at all [and is certainly] not ‘the Legislature’ in Arizona.”