Thomas, J., dissenting
ence to such cases would “only embolden the lower courts to reject state laws on questionable constitutional grounds.” Lopez-Valenzuela, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 2). And it refused to grant a stay pending appeal of a decision purporting to require the State of Alabama to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, even though Alabama’s licensing laws had not been challenged in that case. See Strange v. Searcy, 574 U. S. ___ (2015) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of application for stay). In each decision, the cheers for direct democracy were conspicuously absent.
Sometimes disapproval of ballot initiatives has been even more blatant. Just last Term, one dissenting opinion castigated the product of a state ballot initiative as “stymieing the right of racial minorities to participate in the political process.” Schuette v. BAMN, 572 U. S. ___, ___ (2014) (Sotomayor, J., joined by Ginsburg, J., dissenting) (slip op., at 1). It did not hail the ballot initiative as the result of a “State’s empowerment of its people,” ante, at 19, nor offer any deference to state lawmaking. Instead, it complained that “[t]he majority of Michigan voters changed the rules in the middle of the game, reconfiguring the existing political process … .” Schuette, 572 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 4). And it criticized state ballot initiatives as biased against racial minorities because such minorities “face an especially uphill battle” in seeking the passage of such initiatives. Id., at ___ (slip op., at 20). How quickly the tune has changed.
And how striking that it changed here. The ballot initiative in this case, unlike those that the Court has previously treated so dismissively, was unusually democracy-reducing. It did not ask the people to approve a particular redistricting plan through direct democracy, but instead to take districting away from the people’s representatives and give it to an unelected committee, thereby reducing democratic control over the process in the future. The
