{"id":2290,"date":"2015-06-30T08:49:22","date_gmt":"2015-06-30T14:49:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2290"},"modified":"2015-06-30T08:49:22","modified_gmt":"2015-06-30T14:49:22","slug":"todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html","title":{"rendered":"Today’s recommended reading: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The text of the Supreme Court decision is available at this link<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The two-sentence background is this: \u00a0by popular referendum, Arizona established a nonpartisan redistricting commission to determine congressional districts in a gerrymander-free manner, but the state legislature didn\u2019t like having their power usurped, so they found a loophole \u2014 the statement in the Constitution that the Legislature, not a independent commission, has the authority \u2014 and they sued. \u00a0The Court, by the usual 5-4 margin, with Ginsburg writing the opinion, found in favor of the redistricting commission.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a key paragraph from the opinion (there may be others that state the matter more directly; I\u2019m just skimming quickly):<\/p>\n

The Arizona Legislature\u2019s complaint alleged that \u201c[t]he\u00a0word \u2018Legislature\u2019 in the Elections Clause means [specifi\u00adcally and only] the representative body which makes the laws of the people,\u201d App. 21, \u00b637; so read, the Legislature urges, the Clause precludes resort to an independent commission, created by initiative, to accomplish redistrict\u00ading. The AIRC responded that, for Elections Clause pur\u00adposes, \u201cthe Legislature\u201d is not confined to the elected\u00a0representatives; rather, the term encompasses all legisla\u00adtive authority conferred by the State Constitution, including initiatives adopted by the people themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Having summarized the two arguments, the majority opinion agrees with the latter, that \u201cthe Legislature\u201d really means \u201cany authorized legislative process.\u201d in part because direct initiatives didn\u2019t really exist at the time the Constitution was written, and because, in Ginsburg\u2019s view, the Constitution-writers didn\u2019t really mean to write \u201cthe Legislature\u201d except as a stand-in for \u201cby a legislative process,\u201d but mostly because that was the desirable outcome.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m with Roberts; here\u2019s the opening to his dissent:<\/p>\n

Just over a century ago, Arizona became the second State in the Union to ratify the Seventeenth Amendment.\u00a0That Amendment transferred power to choose United \u00a0States Senators from \u201cthe Legislature\u201d of each State, Art. I, \u00a73, to \u201cthe people thereof.\u201d The Amendment resulted from an arduous, decades-long campaign in which\u00a0reformers across the country worked hard to garner approval from Congress and three-quarters of the States.<\/p>\n

What chumps! Didn\u2019t they realize that all they had to do was interpret the constitutional term \u201cthe Legislature\u201d\u00a0to mean the people\u201d? The Court today performs just such\u00a0a magic trick with the Elections Clause. Art. I, \u00a74. That Clause vests congressional redistricting authority in \u201cthe Legislature\u201d of each State. An Arizona ballot initiative transferred that authority from \u201cthe Legislature\u201d to an\u00a0\u201cIndependent Redistricting Commission.\u201d The majority\u00a0approves this deliberate constitutional evasion by doing what the proponents of the Seventeenth Amendment\u00a0dared not: revising \u201cthe Legislature\u201d to mean \u201cthe people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Court\u2019s position has no basis in the text, structure,\u00a0or history of the Constitution, and it contradicts precedents from both Congress and this Court. The Constitution contains seventeen provisions referring to the \u201cLegislature\u201d of a State, many of which cannot possibly be read\u00a0to mean \u201cthe people.\u201d See Appendix, infra. Indeed, several provisions expressly distinguish \u201cthe Legislature\u201d from\u00a0\u201cthe People.\u201d See Art. I, \u00a72; Amdt. 17. This Court has accordingly defined \u201cthe Legislature\u201d in the Elections Clause as \u201cthe representative body which ma[kes] the laws\u00a0of the people.\u201d Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, 365 (1932) (quoting Hawke v. Smith (No. 1), 253 U. S. 221, 227 (1920); emphasis added).<\/p>\n

The majority largely ignores this evidence, relying\u00a0instead on disconnected observations about direct democracy, a contorted interpretation of an irrelevant statute,\u00a0and naked appeals to public policy. Nowhere does the majority explain how a constitutional provision that vests\u00a0redistricting authority in \u201cthe Legislature\u201d permits a State to wholly exclude \u201cthe Legislature\u201d from redistricting.\u00a0Arizona\u2019s Commission might be a noble endeavor\u2014 although it does not seem so \u201cindependent\u201d in practice\u2014but the \u201cfact that a given law or procedure is efficient,\u00a0convenient, and useful . . . will not save it if it is contrary to the Constitution.\u201d INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 944 \u00a0(1983). No matter how concerned we may be about partisanship in redistricting, this Court has no power to gerrymander the Constitution. I respectfully dissent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the Obamacare decision, there was no explicitly constitutional issue at stake, merely the appropriate interpretation of a law. \u00a0In the Obergefell case, well, we\u2019re used to courts making it up as they go along when it comes to social policy and \u201crights.\u201d<\/p>\n

But: much as I\u2019m a big fan of redistricting commissions and think gerrymandering is terrible, for the Supreme Court majority to literally discard the plain text of the Constitution in order to get to the desired outcome \u2014 well, it\u2019s bad news.<\/p>\n

In Illinois, of course, we have a similar issue<\/a>: \u00a0our esteemed state constitution writers included a clause that state workers are guaranteed that their accrual rates will never be decreased, even for future accruals. \u00a0The legislature is trying all manner of tricks, when it\u2019s apparent that we need an amendment.<\/p>\n

And at the federal level, it seems just as likely that we\u2019ve set up the Constitution as a sacred document and would rather have the Supreme Court twist its words than contemplate amendments.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The text of the Supreme Court decision is available at this link. The two-sentence background is this: \u00a0by popular referendum, Arizona established a nonpartisan redistricting commission to determine congressional districts in a gerrymander-free manner, but the state legislature didn\u2019t like having their power usurped, so they found a loophole \u2014 the statement in the Constitution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nToday's recommended reading: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The text of the Supreme Court decision is available at this link. The two-sentence background is this: \u00a0by popular referendum, Arizona established a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Today's recommended reading: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The text of the Supreme Court decision is available at this link. The two-sentence background is this: \u00a0by popular referendum, Arizona established a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-06-30T14:49:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jane the Actuary\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html\",\"name\":\"Today's recommended reading: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al.\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-06-30T14:49:22+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-06-30T14:49:22+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\"},\"description\":\"The text of the Supreme Court decision is available at this link. The two-sentence background is this: \u00a0by popular referendum, Arizona established a\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Today’s recommended reading: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al.\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a\",\"name\":\"Jane the Actuary\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Jane the Actuary\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Today's recommended reading: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al.","description":"The text of the Supreme Court decision is available at this link. The two-sentence background is this: \u00a0by popular referendum, Arizona established a","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Today's recommended reading: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al.","og_description":"The text of the Supreme Court decision is available at this link. The two-sentence background is this: \u00a0by popular referendum, Arizona established a","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html","og_site_name":"Jane the Actuary","article_published_time":"2015-06-30T14:49:22+00:00","author":"Jane the Actuary","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jane the Actuary","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html","name":"Today's recommended reading: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al.","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-06-30T14:49:22+00:00","dateModified":"2015-06-30T14:49:22+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a"},"description":"The text of the Supreme Court decision is available at this link. The two-sentence background is this: \u00a0by popular referendum, Arizona established a","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/06\/todays-recommended-reading-arizona-state-legislature-v-arizona-independent-redistricting-commission-et-al.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Today’s recommended reading: Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission et al."}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/","name":"Jane the Actuary","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/ed9b99e0bd58c5eeeebae6b82fa5a77a","name":"Jane the Actuary","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8d6a493d380e87d49599d5487691c9fc?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Jane the Actuary"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/author\/actuaryjane"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2209"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}