Thomas, J., dissenting
I
Here is the case before us in a nutshell: A group of plaintiffs sued various state officials under state law. The defendants raised both state-law and federal-law defenses. In the interlocutory judgment below, the State Supreme Court rejected both defenses and remanded for further proceedings. We granted review to consider the defendants’ federal defense. But then, in subsequent proceedings, the state court revisited defendants’ alternative state-law defense and held that it was meritorious. As a result, the court finally adjudicated the whole case in the defendants’ favor, dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims with prejudice.
This is a straightforward case of mootness. The federal defense no longer makes any difference to this case—whether we agree with the defense, disagree with it, or say nothing at all, the final judgment in this litigation will be exactly the same. The majority does not seriously contest that fact. Even so, it asserts jurisdiction to decide this free-floating defense that affects no live claim for relief, reasoning that a justiciable case or controversy exists as long as its opinion can in any way “alter the presently operative statutes of” a State. Ante, at 7 (internal quotation marks omitted). By its own lights, the majority “is acting not as an Article III court,” Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, 592 U. S. ___, ___ (2021) (Roberts, C. J., dissenting) (slip op., at 3), but as an ad hoc branch of a state legislature. That is emphatically not our job. Compare U. S. Const., Art. III, §1, with N. C. Const., Art. II, §1.
A
To review the history of this case is to demonstrate that the question presented is moot. In 2021, the North Carolina General Assembly passed an Act to redistrict the State for elections to the U. S. House of Representatives. Plaintiffs-respondents filed an action in state court, seeking to enjoin state elections officials (defendants-respondents here) from
