Opinion of the Court
rected that when a State has been “redistricted in the manner provided by [state] law”—whether by the legislature, court decree (see id., at 274), or a commission established by the people’s exercise of the initiative—the resulting districts are the ones that presumptively will be used to elect Representatives.[1]
There can be no dispute that Congress itself may draw a State’s congressional-district boundaries. See Vieth, 541 U. S., at 275 (plurality opinion) (stating that the Elections Clause “permit[s] Congress to ‘make or alter’ ” the “districts for federal elections”). The Arizona Legislature urges that the first part of the Elections Clause, vesting power to regulate congressional elections in State “Legislature[s],” precludes Congress from allowing a State to redistrict without the involvement of its representative body, even if Congress independently could enact the same redistricting plan under its plenary authority to “make or alter” the State’s plan. See Brief for Appellant 56–57; Reply Brief 17. In other words, the Arizona Legislature regards §2a(c) as a futile exercise. The Congresses that passed §2a(c) and its forerunner, the 1911 Act, did not share that wooden interpretation of the Clause, nor do we. Any uncertainty about the import of §2a(c), however, is resolved by our holding that the Elections Clause permits regulation of congressional elections by initiative, see infra, at 24–35, leaving no arguable conflict between §2a(c) and the first part of the Clause.
- ↑ The Chief Justice, in dissent, insists that §2a(c) and its precursor, the 1911 Act, have nothing to do with this case. Post, at 20–21, 23. Undeniably, however, it was the very purpose of the measures to recognize the legislative authority each State has to determine its own redistricting regime.
ered the question whether §2a(c) had been repealed by implication and stated, “where what it prescribes is constitutional,” the provision “continues to apply.”
