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Opinion of the Court
erative case, Railroad Comm'n of Tex. v. Pullman Co., 312 U. S. 496 (1941). Designed to avoid federal-court error in deciding state-law questions antecedent to federal constitutional issues, the Pullman mechanism remitted parties to the state courts for adjudication of the unsettled state-law issues. If settlement of the state-law question did not prove dispositive of the case, the parties could return to the federal court for decision of the federal issues. Attractive in theory because it placed state-law questions in courts equipped to rule authoritatively on them, Pullman abstention proved protracted and expensive in practice, for it entailed a full round of litigation in the state court system before any resumption of proceedings in federal court. See generally 17A C. Wright, A. Miller, & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure §§ 4242, 4243 (2d ed. 1988 and Supp. 1996).
Certification procedure, in contrast, allows a federal court faced with a novel state-law question to put the question directly to the State's highest court, reducing the delay, cutting the cost, and increasing the assurance of gaining an authoritative response. See Note, Federal Courts—Certification Before Facial Invalidation: A Return to Federalism, 12 W. New Eng. L. Rev. 217 (1990). Most States have adopted certification procedures. See generally 17A Wright, Miller, & Cooper, supra, § 4248. Arizona's statute, set out supra, at 51, n. 5, permits the State's highest court to consider questions certified to it by federal district courts, as well as courts of appeals and this Court.
Both lower federal courts in this case refused to invite the aid of the Arizona Supreme Court because they found the language of Article XXVIII "plain," and the Attorney General's limiting construction unpersuasive. See 730 F. Supp., at 315-316; 69 F. 3d, at 928-931.30 Furthermore, the Ninth
30 But cf. Huggins v. Isenbarger, 798 F. 2d 203, 207-210 (CA7 1986) (East-erbrook, J., concurring) (reasoned opinion of State Attorney General should be accorded respectful consideration; federal courts should hesitate
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