280
Opinion of Scalia, J.
the state legislature's obligation to prescribe the "Times, Places and Manner" of holding congressional elections is grounded in Article I, § 4, cl. 1, of the Constitution itself and not any mere statutory requirement. Here, as acknowledged by the dissent, the federal plaintiffs "alleged a constitutional violation"—failure to provide for the election of the proper number of Representatives in accordance with Article I, § 2, cl. 1—"and the federal court drew a plan to remedy that violation," post, at 301. In crafting its remedy, the District Court appropriately followed the "Regulations" Congress prescribed in § 2c—"Regulations" that Article I, § 4, cl. 1, of the Constitution expressly permits Congress to make, see supra, at 266. To be sure, § 2c "envisions legislative action," supra, at 272, but in the context of Article I, § 4, cl. 1, such "Regulations" are expressly allowed. In enacting § 2c (and § 2a(c), for that matter), Congress was not placing a statutory obligation on the state legislatures as it was in New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144 (1992); rather, it was regulating (as the Constitution specifically permits) the manner in which a State is to fulfill its pre-existing constitutional obligations under Article I, §§ 2 and 4. Our interpretation of § 2c no more permits a commandeering of the machinery of state government than does the dissent's understanding of § 2a(c). Under our view, if the State fails to redistrict, then federal courts may do so. Under the dissent's view, if the State fails to redistrict (and loses congressional seats), then the federal courts must order at-large elections pursuant to § 2a(c)(5). See, e. g., post, at 299-300. If our reading of § 2c runs afoul of any anticommandeering principles, then the dissent commits the same sin.
Another straw man erected by the dissent is to be found in its insistence—as though in response to an argument of ours—that "[s]ince § 2a(c) was enacted decades before the Baker line of cases, this subsequent development cannot change the interpretation of § 2a(c)." Post, at 307. But we have never said that those cases changed the meaning of
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