Case Summary

After Ohio’s governor signed a congressional redistricting bill into law in 1915, a group of Ohio voters successfully invoked the Ohio Constitution’s citizen referendum process and Ohio’s voters subsequently rejected the law. Thereafter, several Ohio elected officials filed a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court seeking to prevent the referendum’s result from taking effect, arguing the state’s congressional redistricting bill fell outside the scope of the state constitution’s referendum power because the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause explicitly gives the “legislatures” of each state the authority to determine the time, place, and manner of federal elections.

  • The Ohio Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs on the grounds Ohio’s citizen referendum power was included within the overall scope of the State’s legislative powers. Plaintiffs appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
  • On June 12, 1916, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the Ohio Constitution’s referendum process could be applied to congressional redistricting legislation because, as part of Ohio’s state constitution and laws, it fell within the overall scope of the state’s “legislative” powers. As further support, the Court cited Congress’s clear intention for state referendum processes to be applicable to congressional redistricting legislation by amending federal redistricting statutes to clarify that redistricting was to be done not by each state’s “legislature,” but rather by each state “in the manner provided by the laws thereof.”

Significance: Legislative powers reserved to citizens by the various states' constitutions and laws, such as a referendum vote, can be invoked in the context of redistricting statutes enacted by the state's legislature and this does not violate the requirement of Art. I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution that the "legislatures" determine the time places, and manner of elections.

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U.S. Supreme Court - 241 U.S. 565 (1916)