This post was written by Nate Ela, of COWS

If you were following news earlier this week about the end of the Supreme Court term, you probably read that Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission was a win for direct democracy. The Court held that an independent redistricting commission established in 2000 as the result of a voter initiative did not violate the elections clause (U.S. Const. art. I, § 4, cl. 1.: “[t]he Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the Legislature thereof ….”). To get to this conclusion, Justice Ginsburg reasoned that the authors of the constitution, as proponents of popular sovereignty, would have understood “legislature” to have included the people themselves as a law-making body.

Many commentators hailed this as a big win for direct democracy. Richard Pildes, in a New York Times Op-Ed, noted that while it is not a panacea, “direct democracy remains an important means of policing the inevitable temptations those in power have to entrench themselves more securely in power.” Ciara Torres-Spelliscy noted approvingly on the Brennan Center blog that the ruling “embraces not only the specific voters’ choice in Arizona, but also it supports the initiative and referendum process in other states as well.”

A few commentators decried the win for direct democracy. “Leaving policy to the passions of the people is dangerous,” warned the opinions editor of the Arizona Republic. “A representative republic excels over direct democracy. Arizona's early leaders where too hard-headed to understand that.”

If direct democracy won, who lost? Lisa Soronen, the executive director of the State and Local Legal Center, suggested on the NCSL blog that legislatures did. NCSL had filed an amicus brief in support of the Arizona Legislature, arguing that Arizona was one of only two states where legislatures had been completely divested of redistricting authority, and that the Constitution requires state legislatures to be involved substantively in the redistricting process. The majority did not find those arguments compelling.

Yet if Arizona allows legislatures to be cut entirely out of the redistricting process, what are the potential stakes? Several recent studies have concluded that non-legislative redistricting might not actually be much of a loss for partisan or incumbent legislators — or much of a win for people who'd hope to see less political polarization. One study found that “bipartisan districts promote member moderation,” but “no evidence that commissions have distinct effects on districts or members as compared to districts drawn by legislatures.” Another found that non-legislative redistricting hasn’t increased competitiveness in elections, either by “reduc[ing] the typical margins of incumbents’ victories or increase[ing] the likelihood that incumbents would lose.” And contrary to what one might expect, one even concluded that “states with nonpartisan redistricting methods saw their legislatures become more polarized, while those states with partisan methods saw slight de-polarization, on average” (although the data were only from 1999 to 2005).

So it may be that Arizona was a win for direct democracy won and a loss for legislatures, but a wash for We the People. This could explain why some reformers, rather than hurrying to suggest replicating Arizona’s system in other states, took the opportunity instead to propose ideas for more effective reforms. FairVote, for example, responded to Arizona by calling for a new system of electing members to Congress from multi-winner districts, using ranked-choice voting. (They have a white paper on how that could work here.)

It is hard, of course, to find fault with a big win for direct democracy – especially when it comes from the current Supreme Court. But as we celebrate another Independence Day, we shouldn't stop envisioning and experimenting with new ways of making this a more perfect union. There’s plenty left to do.