There was an attempt to do exactly that, by initiative in Colorado a few years ago. The matter wasn’t litigated only because the initiative failed. In my opinion, however, based on the House districting precedents, the initiative would have been perfectly constitutional.
I don’t really see how the legislature gets around Hildebrandt. I am faintly amused by the prospect of Arizona Republicans denouncing SCOTUS as “inactivist judges” if they decline to overturn the initiative, though. 
I think it’s even more basic than that. 2 USC 2(a)(c) says to use the law of the state and Congress can limit the Legislature’s power in this way just like when they took away at-large voting. The Constitution even acknowledges this Congressional power when it limited it in one very specific case.
Ruling is affirmed.
Yes, that’s their position.
But it doesn’t hold water. The governor’s veto and the citizen veto frustrate the express aim of the legislators. How can that be proper, and this current scheme be improper?
Perfectly cromulent, I imagine.
Help me out here: if the Court were to find that the word “legislatures” means only the elected bodies of each state, and no other lawmaking process of that state, wouldn’t that imply that some of the ways Congress has delegated its constitutional powers may be in question? For example, the Congress created the Fed to regulate the value of money, even though the Constitution states that’s a specific power for Congress.
So is there a risk here of states being held to a much stricter standard of the non-delegation doctrine than the Congress currently is, or am I missing something in the argument?
I don’t think they would reach that issue, even assuming it has been raised. This isn’t a delegation of legislative power; it’s a reassignment of a legislative power by the electorate, bypassing the legislature.
Based on this -
[QUOTE=Arizona Constitution Art 4]
Section 1. (1) Senate; house of representatives; reservation of power to people. The legislative authority of the state shall be vested in the legislature, consisting of a senate and a house of representatives, but the people reserve the power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution and to enact or reject such laws and amendments at the polls, independently of the legislature; and they also reserve, for use at their own option, the power to approve or reject at the polls any act, or item, section, or part of any act, of the legislature.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t think the Republicans have a leg to stand on. The people proposed and passed a law. It doesn’t matter if the legislature likes it or not, and the US Constitution does not say that Congress gets to do redistricting - only to regulate the times and manners of holding elections.
Vox populi, vox Dei.
Regards,
Shodan
Arizona’s constitution cannot override the federal constitution, though; the Republican argument is solely a federal one.
Ahhhh… that makes sense. Missed that part of the argument.
The federal constitution does not assign redistricting to Congress, therefore the power of doing so belongs to the states, or the people. A ballot initiative at the state level is an exercise of that power by the people of a state no matter how you look at it.
Regards,
Shodan
Sure. But people =/= legislature, except in rather abstract philosophical terms. The problem is that the FC assigns the power to regulate elections to the state legislatures, specifically. Again, I don’t think it’s a winning argument, but it is a colorable one.
I analogize this to Halbig v. Burwell: briefly intriguing, falls apart on close inspection.
And the AZ constitution says the people get to overrule if they want to.
The FC does not get to overturn the provisions of the AZ constitution unless those provisions conflict with the US constitution, and the US constitution says any power not specifically granted to Congress belongs to the states or the people. The people of AZ would not get to overrule the US Congress in deciding the place and manner of holding elections. Redistricting is not deciding the place or manner of holding an election.
But I am a textualist. I think the Constitution says what it says.
Regards,
Shodan
Right, there is no gerrymandering- yet.
The AZ legislature would like to do some gerrymandering, along the lines numerous other states where the congressional districts have been cynically drawn by the state legislative majorities to deprive the opposition of a chance of being justly competitive.
ISTM that the Arizona Republicans are counting on a SCOTUS that is less than sanguine about the direct-democracy process itself.
And I don’t know if this has any juridical basis, but it just seems to me that if the State Constitution grants the people direct initiative/referendum power, then that in effect means the people are recognized as a citizens’ assembly with full legislative power that outranks the representative legislature. As I see it, unless there’s some fundamental due process or equal protection issue they’ve overstepped on, if the State Constitution provides for citizens’ initiative, how can that mean usurping the State Legislature? It’s “we the people of [State]” who give power to the State Assembly, not the other way around.
And what if this were a referendum called by the legislature? Or a new state constitution established by Convention? Would that still be usurping legislative power?
Actually, sort of. Before the 17th Amendment, Oregon passed a referendum mandating that direct elections be held for US Senate and that the state legislature appoint whoever won the election, and a bunch of other states did the same.
I think you’re 0-2 on this one. First of all, the Constitution pretty much allows Congress to make any rules except changing the place to choose Senators. IF you were right, then the law requiring Congressional districts and that the representative being a resident of the district they represent would be unconstitutional.
Second, Clement’s point was that the power to redistrict is given by the Constitution specifically to the legislature - not “the state” or “the people” but the elected body of lawmakers and that the initiative process does not make the voter “the Legislature”
The political cartoon in the San Jose Merc today shows a map of the state (CA) with DEMOCRAT written on about 90% of it and GOP written on a tiny corner. Two Republicans are talking to each other and one says “Are we sure we want to go back to political redistricting?” 
I think we are in basic disagreement on the role of the Constitution.
For the federal government (in my view) there are two classes of action - that which is mandatory, and everything else, which is forbidden. If the Constitution says Congress can do something, they can do that. They cannot do anything else.
Congress may make no other rules than the ones you mention. Or, more properly, they can make other rules but are immediately and automatically overridden by the states or the people. Congress says legislatures may do such-and-such. The people of AZ pass a referendum saying that they want something else. Presto - the AZ legislature is overridden (as specified in the AZ constitution) and Congress is overridden because of the Tenth Amendment.
I believe in limited government - in this instance. limited to only what is specifically allowed in the US Constitution.
The default for any action by the Federal government is No, you can’t do that. The only way to justify any action is for the feds to point to the specific provision in the Constitution that says the feds may do such-and-such, explicitly. If it is not explicitly mentioned, it is verboten.
This is hardly a popular view of the role of the US government, since bureaucracies tend always to increase their scope and power. The Founding Fathers knew and saw that, and acted to stop it.
Regards,
Shodan
Is this your legal analysis, or your personal interpretation?
It’s textualism. IANAL.
Regards,
Shodan