Page:Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Comm’n.pdf/63

24 U. S. 437, 449 (1905). We ought to give effect to the words they used.

The majority today shows greater concern about redistricting practices than about the meaning of the Constitution. I recognize the difficulties that arise from trying to fashion judicial relief for partisan gerrymandering. See Vieth v. Jubelirer, 541 U. S. 267 (2004); ante, at 1. But our inability to find a manageable standard in that area is no excuse to abandon a standard of meaningful interpretation in this area. This Court has stressed repeatedly that a law’s virtues as a policy innovation cannot redeem its inconsistency with the Constitution. “Failure of political will does not justify unconstitutional remedies.” Clinton, 524 U. S., at 449 (, concurring); see Stern v. Marshall, 564 U. S. ___ (2011); Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U. S. 477 (2010); Bowsher v. Synar, 478 U. S. 714 (1986); Chadha, 462 U. S. 919; Myers v. United States, 272 U. S. 52 (1926).

Indeed, the Court has enforced the text of the Constitution to invalidate state laws with policy objectives reminiscent of this one. Two of our precedents held that States could not use their constitutions to impose term limits on their federal representatives in violation of the United States Constitution. Cook, 531 U. S. 510; U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U. S. 779 (1995). The people of the States that enacted these reforms surely viewed them as measures that would “place the lead rein in the people’s hands.” Ante, at 27. Yet the Court refused to accept “that the Framers spent significant time and energy in debating and crafting Clauses that could be easily evaded.” Term Limits, 514 U. S., at 831. The majority approves just such an evasion of the Constitution today.