Moore v. Harper

by Supreme Court of the United States

Note: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

MOORE, IN HIS OFFICIAL CAPACITY AS SPEAKER OF THE NORTH CAROLINA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, ET AL. v. HARPER ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA
No. 21–1271. Argued December 7, 2022—Decided June 27, 2023

The Elections Clause of the Federal Constitution requires “the Legislature” of each State to prescribe the rules governing federal elections. Art. I, §4, cl. 1. This case concerns the claim that the Clause vests state legislatures with authority to set rules governing federal elections free from restrictions imposed under state law. Following the 2020 decennial census, North Carolina’s General Assembly drafted a new federal congressional map, which several groups of plaintiffs challenged as an impermissible partisan gerrymander in violation of the North Carolina Constitution. The trial court found partisan gerrymandering claims nonjusticiable under the State Constitution, but the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed. Harper v. Hall, 380 N. C. 317, 868 S. E. 2d 499 (Harper I). While acknowledging that partisan gerrymandering claims are outside the reach of federal courts, see Rucho v. Common Cause, 588 U. S. ___, ___, the State Supreme Court held that such questions were not beyond the reach of North Carolina courts. The court also rejected the argument that the Federal Elections Clause vests exclusive and independent authority in state legislatures to draw federal congressional maps. The court enjoined the use of the maps and remanded the case to the trial court for remedial proceedings. The legislative defendants then filed an emergency application in this Court, citing the Elections Clause and requesting a stay of the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision. This Court declined to issue a stay, but later granted certiorari.

After this Court granted certiorari, the North Carolina Supreme Court issued a decision addressing a remedial map adopted by the trial court. Harper v. Hall, 383 N. C. 89, 125, 881 S. E. 2d 156, 181 (Harper II). The North Carolina Supreme Court then granted the legislative defendants’ request to rehear that remedial decision in Harper II. The court ultimately withdrew the opinion in Harper II concerning the remedial maps and overruled Harper I, repudiating its holding that partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable under the North Carolina Constitution. The court dismissed plaintiffs’ claims but did not reinstate the 2021 congressional plans struck down in Harper I under the State Constitution. This Court has entertained two rounds of supplemental briefing on jurisdictional questions in light of the state court’s rehearing proceedings.

Held:

1. This Court has jurisdiction to review the judgment of the North Carolina Supreme Court in Harper I that adjudicated the Federal Elections Clause issue. A corollary to this Court’s jurisdiction over “Cases” and “Controversies” is that there must exist a dispute “at all stages of review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed.” Genesis HealthCare Corp. v. Symczyk, 569 U. S. 66, 71 (internal quotation marks omitted). The North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision to withdraw Harper II and overrule Harper I does not moot this case. Prior to the appeal and rehearing proceedings in Harper II, the court had already entered the judgment and issued the mandate in Harper I, and the legislative defendants acknowledged that they would remain bound by Harper I’s decision enjoining the use of the 2021 plans. When the North Carolina Supreme Court “overruled” Harper I as part of the rehearing proceedings, it repudiated Harper I’s conclusion that partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable under the North Carolina Constitution. But the court did not purport to alter or amend the judgment in Harper I enjoining the use of the 2021 maps. Were this Court to reverse Harper I, the 2021 plans would again take effect. Because the legislative defendants’ path to complete relief runs through this Court, the parties continue to have a “personal stake in the ultimate disposition of the lawsuit” sufficient to maintain this Court’s jurisdiction. Chafin v. Chafin, 568 U. S. 165, 172 (internal quotation marks omitted).

This Court also has jurisdiction to review the judgment in Harper I under 28 U. S. C. §1257(a), which provides that jurisdiction in this Court extends to “[f]inal judgments … rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had.” Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, identified categories of cases in which a decision of a State’s highest court was considered a final judgment for §1257(a) purposes despite the anticipation of additional lower court proceedings, including “cases … in which the federal issue, finally decided by the highest court in the State, will survive and require decision regardless of the outcome of future state-court proceedings.” Id., at 480. Harper I is such a case. Because subsequent proceedings have neither altered Harper I’s analysis of the federal issue nor negated the effect of the Harper I judgment striking down the 2021 plans, that issue both has survived and requires decision by this Court. Pp. 6–11.

2. The Elections Clause does not vest exclusive and independent authority in state legislatures to set the rules regarding federal elections.

Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, famously proclaimed this Court’s authority to invalidate laws that violate the Federal Constitution. But Marbury did not invent the concept of judicial review. State courts had already begun to impose restraints on state legislatures, even before the Constitutional Convention, and the practice continued to mature during the founding era. James Madison extolled judicial review as one of the key virtues of a constitutional system, and the concept of judicial review was so entrenched by the time the Court decided Marbury that Chief Justice Marshall referred to it as one of society’s “fundamental principles.” Id., at 177..

The Elections Clause does not carve out an exception to that fundamental principle. When state legislatures prescribe the rules concerning federal elections, they remain subject to the ordinary exercise of state judicial review. Pp. 11–26.

(a) In Ohio ex rel. Davis v. Hildebrant, 241 U. S. 565, this Court examined the Elections Clause’s application to a provision of the Ohio Constitution permitting the State’s voters to reject, by popular vote, any law enacted by the State’s General Assembly. This Court upheld the Ohio Supreme Court’s determination that the Federal Elections Clause did not preclude subjecting legislative acts under the Clause to a popular referendum, rejecting the contention that “to include the referendum within state legislative power for the purpose of apportionment is repugnant to §4 of Article I [the Elections Clause].” Id., at 569. And in Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, this Court considered the effect of a Governor’s veto, pursuant to his authority under the State’s Constitution, of a congressional redistricting plan. This Court held that the Governor’s veto did not violate the Elections Clause, reasoning that a state legislature’s “exercise of … authority” under the Elections Clause “must be in accordance with the method which the State has prescribed for legislative enactments.” Id., at 367. The Court highlighted that the Federal Constitution contained no “provision of an attempt to endow the legislature of the State with power to enact laws in any manner other than that in which the constitution of the State has provided that laws shall be enacted.” Id., at 368.

This Court recently reinforced the teachings of Hildebrant and Smiley in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Comm’n, 576 U. S. 787, a case concerning the constitutionality of an Arizona ballot initiative to amend the State Constitution and to vest redistricting authority in an independent commission. Significantly for present purposes, the Court embraced the core principle espoused in Hildebrant and Smiley: Whatever authority was responsible for redistricting, that entity remained subject to constraints set forth in the State Constitution. The Court dismissed the argument that the Elections Clause divests state constitutions of the power to enforce checks against the exercise of legislative power.

The basic principle of these cases—reflected in Smiley’s unanimous command that a state legislature may not “create congressional districts independently of” requirements imposed “by the state constitution with respect to the enactment of laws,” 285 U. S., at 373—commands continued respect. Pp. 15–18.

(b) The precedents of this Court have long rejected the view that legislative action under the Elections Clause is purely federal in character, governed only by restraints found in the Federal Constitution. The argument to the contrary 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. Thus, when a state legislature carries out its federal constitutional power to prescribe rules regulating federal elections, it 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 state legislature’s exercise of power.

This Court’s decision in McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, in which the Court analyzed the Constitution’s similarly worded Electors Clause, is inapposite. That decision did not address any conflict between state constitutional provisions and state legislatures. Nor does Leser v. Garnett, 258 U. S. 130, which involved a contested vote by a state legislature to ratify a federal constitutional amendment, help petitioners. That case concerned the power of state legislatures to ratify amendments to the Federal Constitution. But fashioning regulations governing federal elections “unquestionably calls for the exercise of lawmaking authority.” Arizona State Legislature, 576 U. S., at 808, n. 17. And the exercise of such authority in the context of the Elections Clause is subject to the ordinary constraints on lawmaking in the state constitution. Pp. 18–22.

(c) Petitioners concede that at least some state constitutional provisions can restrain a state legislature’s exercise of authority under the Elections Clause, but they read Smiley and Hildebrant to differentiate between procedural and substantive constraints. But neither case drew such a distinction, and petitioners do not in any event offer a defensible line between procedure and substance in this context. Pp. 22–24.

(d) Historical practice confirms that state legislatures remain bound by state constitutional restraints when exercising authority under the Elections Clause. Two state constitutional provisions adopted shortly after the founding expressly constrained state legislative action under the Elections Clause. See Del. Const., Art. VIII, §2 (1792); Md. Const., Art. XIV (1810). In addition, multiple state constitutions at the time of the founding regulated the “manner” of federal elections by requiring that “elections shall be by ballot.” See, e.g., Ga. Const., Art. IV, §2. Moreover, the Articles of Confederation—from which the Framers borrowed—provided that “delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislature of each state shall direct.” Art. V. Around the time the Articles were adopted, multiple States regulated the appointment of delegates, suggesting that the Framers did not understand that language to insulate state legislative action from state constitutional provisions. See, e.g., Del. Const., Art. XI (1776). Pp. 24–26.

3. Although the Elections Clause does not exempt state legislatures from the ordinary constraints imposed by state law, federal courts must not abandon their duty to exercise judicial review. This Court has an obligation to ensure that state court interpretations of state law do not evade federal law. For example, States “may not sidestep the Takings Clause by disavowing traditional property interests.” Phillips v. Washington Legal Foundation, 524 U. S. 156, 167. While the Court does not adopt a test by which state court interpretations of state law can be measured in cases implicating the Elections Clause, state courts may not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that they arrogate to themselves the power vested in state legislatures to regulate federal elections.

The Court need not decide whether the North Carolina Supreme Court strayed beyond the limits derived from the Elections Clause, as petitioners did not meaningfully present the issue in this Court. Pp. 26–29.

380 N. C. 317, 868 S. E. 2d 499, affirmed.

Roberts, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Sotomayor, Kagan, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson, JJ., joined. Kavanaugh, J., filed a concurring opinion. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion in which Gorsuch, J., joined, and in which Alito, J., joined as to Part I.

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