184
Opinion of the Court
irreconcilable with the powers delegated to Congress by the Constitution and hence with the Tenth Amendment's reservation to the States of those powers not delegated to the Federal Government, we need only address the applicability of the Guarantee Clause to the Act's other two challenged provisions.
We approach the issue with some trepidation, because the Guarantee Clause has been an infrequent basis for litigation throughout our history. In most of the cases in which the Court has been asked to apply the Clause, the Court has found the claims presented to be nonjusticiable under the "political question" doctrine. See, e. g., City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 182, n. 17 (1980) (challenge to the preclearance requirements of the Voting Rights Act); Baker v. Carr, 369 U. S. 186, 218-229 (1962) (challenge to apportionment of state legislative districts); Pacific States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118, 140-151 (1912) (challenge to initiative and referendum provisions of state constitution).
The view that the Guarantee Clause implicates only nonjusticiable political questions has its origin in Luther v. Borden, 7 How. 1 (1849), in which the Court was asked to decide, in the wake of Dorr's Rebellion, which of two rival governments was the legitimate government of Rhode Island. The Court held that "it rests with Congress," not the judiciary, "to decide what government is the established one in a State." Id., at 42. Over the following century, this limited holding metamorphosed into the sweeping assertion that "[v]iolation of the great guaranty of a republican form of government in States cannot be challenged in the courts." Cole-grove v. Green, 328 U. S. 549, 556 (1946) (plurality opinion).
This view has not always been accepted. In a group of cases decided before the holding of Luther was elevated into a general rule of nonjusticiability, the Court addressed the merits of claims founded on the Guarantee Clause without any suggestion that the claims were not justiciable. See At-
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