Page:Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Comm’n.pdf/62

Rh regime, because the text of the Clause confers the power to do exactly (and only) that.” Id., at ___, n. 6 (slip op., at 11, n. 6). Under the majority’s interpretation of Section 2a(c), however, Congress has done the opposite of preempting or displacing state law—it has adopted state law.

Normally, when “a serious doubt of constitutionality is raised, it is a cardinal principle that this Court will first ascertain whether a construction of the statute is fairly possible by which the question may be avoided.” Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932). The multiple serious constitutional doubts raised by the majority’s interpretation of Section 2a(c)—in addition to the sheer weakness of its reading as a textual matter—provide more than enough reason to reject the majority’s construction. Section 2a(c) does not apply to this case.

Justice Jackson once wrote that the Constitution speaks in “majestic generalities.” ''West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette'', 319 U. S. 624, 639 (1943). In many places it does, and so we have cases expounding on “freedom of speech” and “unreasonable searches and seizures.” Amdts. 1, 4. Yet the Constitution also speaks in some places with elegant specificity. A Member of the House of Representatives must be 25 years old. Art. I, §2, cl. 2. Every State gets two Senators. Art. I, §3, cl. 1. And the times, places, and manner of holding elections for those federal representatives “shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.” Art. I, §4, cl. 1.

For the reasons I have explained, there is no real doubt about what “the Legislature” means. The Framers of the Constitution were “practical men, dealing with the facts of political life as they understood them, putting into form the government they were creating, and prescribing in language clear and intelligible the powers that government was to take.” South Carolina v. United States, 199