INDEPENDENT REDISTRICTING COMM’N
Opinion of the Court
The Clause was also intended to act as a safeguard against manipulation of electoral rules by politicians and factions in the States to entrench themselves or place their interests over those of the electorate. As Madison urged, without the Elections Clause, “[w]henever the State Legislatures had a favorite measure to carry, they would take care so to mould their regulations as to favor the candidates they wished to succeed.” 2 Records of the Federal Convention 241 (M. Farrand rev. 1966). Madison spoke in response to a motion by South Carolina’s delegates to strike out the federal power. Those delegates so moved because South Carolina’s coastal elite had malapportioned their legislature, and wanted to retain the ability to do so. See J. Rakove, Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution 223–224 (1996). The problem Madison identified has hardly lessened over time. Conflict of interest is inherent when “legislators dra[w] district lines that they ultimately have to run in.” Cain, 121 Yale L. J., at 1817.
Arguments in support of congressional control under the Elections Clause were reiterated in the public debate over ratification. Theophilus Parsons, a delegate at the Massachusetts ratifying convention, warned that “when faction and party spirit run high,” a legislature might take actions like “mak[ing] an unequal and partial division of the states into districts for the election of representatives.” Debate in Massachusetts Ratifying Convention (16–17, 21 Jan. 1788), in 2 The Founders’ Constitution 256 (P. Kurland & R. Lerner eds. 1987). Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts similarly urged that the Clause was necessary because “the State governments may abuse their power, and regulate … elections in such manner as would be highly inconvenient to the people.” Letter to Charles Tillinghast (24 Dec. 1787), in id., at 253. He described the Clause as a way to “ensure to the people their rights of election.” Ibid.
