Page:Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Comm’n.pdf/7

Rh initiatives adopted by the people themselves.

A three-judge District Court held, unanimously, that the Arizona Legislature had standing to sue; dividing two to one, the Court rejected the Legislature’s complaint on the merits. We postponed jurisdiction and instructed the parties to address two questions: (1) Does the Arizona Legislature have standing to bring this suit? (2) Do the Elections Clause of the United States Constitution and 2 U. S. C. §2a(c) permit Arizona’s use of a commission to adopt congressional districts? 573 U. S. ___ (2014).

We now affirm the District Court’s judgment. We hold, first, that the Arizona Legislature, having lost authority to draw congressional districts, has standing to contest the constitutionality of Proposition 106. Next, we hold that lawmaking power in Arizona includes the initiative process, and that both §2a(c) and the Elections Clause permit use of the AIRC in congressional districting in the same way the Commission is used in districting for Arizona’s own Legislature.

Direct lawmaking by the people was “virtually unknown when the Constitution of 1787 was drafted.” Donovan & Bowler, An Overview of Direct Democracy in the American States, in Citizens as Legislators 1 (S. Bowler, T. Donovan, & C. Tolbert eds. 1998). There were obvious precursors or analogues to the direct lawmaking operative today in several States, notably, New England’s town hall meetings and the submission of early state constitutions to the people for ratification. See Lowell, The Referendum in the United States, in The Initiative, Referendum and Recall 126, 127 (W. Munro ed. 1912) (hereinafter IRR); W. Dodd, The Revision and Amendment of State