Opinion of the Court
power is constrained by “the tenor of the commission under which it is exercised.” The Federalist No. 78, at 466; see Tr. of Oral Arg. 4.
This argument simply ignores the precedent just described. Hildebrant, Smiley, and Arizona State Legislature each rejected the contention that the Elections Clause vests state legislatures with exclusive and independent authority when setting the rules governing federal elections.
The argument advanced by the defendants and the dissent also does not account for the Framers’ understanding that when legislatures make laws, they are bound by the provisions of the very documents that give them life. Legislatures, the Framers recognized, “are the mere creatures of the State Constitutions, and cannot be greater than their creators.” 2 Farrand 88. “What are Legislatures? Creatures of the Constitution; they owe their existence to the Constitution: they derive their powers from the Constitution: It is their commission; and, therefore, all their acts must be conformable to it, or else they will be void.” Vanhorne’s Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 Dall. 304, 308 (Pa. 1795). Marbury confirmed this understanding, 1 Cranch, at 176–177, and nothing in the text of the Elections Clause undermines it. When a state legislature carries out its constitutional power to prescribe rules regulating federal elections, the “commission under which” it exercises authority is twofold. The Federalist No. 78, at 467. The legislature acts both as a lawmaking body created and bound by its state constitution, and as the entity assigned particular authority by the Federal Constitution. Both constitutions restrain the legislature’s exercise of power.
Turning to our precedents, the defendants quote from our analysis of the Electors Clause in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1 (1892). That Clause—similar to the Elections Clause—provides that “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a [specified]
