433 Opinion of the Court. seek to enforce, to be repugnant to the Federal Constitution, has been carefully considered and our jurisdiction in that class of cases has been sustained. The original Judiciary Act of 1789 provided in § 25 10 for the review by this Court of a judgment of a state court "where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under any State, on the ground of their being repugnant to the constitution, treaties or laws of the United States, and the decision is in favour of such their validity"; that is, where the claim of federal right had been denied. By the Act of December 23, 1914, it was provided that this Court may review on certiorari decisions of state courts sustaining a federal right. The present statute governing our jurisdiction on certiorari contains the corresponding provision that this Court may exercise that jurisdiction "as well where the federal claim is sustained as where it is denied." Jud. Code, § 237 (b); 28 U. S. C. 344 (b). The plain purpose was to provide an opportunity, deemed to be important and appropriate, for the review of the decisions of state courts on constitutional questions however the state court might decide them. Accordingly where the claim of a complainant that a state officer be restrained from enforcing a state statute because of constitutional invalidity is sustained by the state court, the statute enables the state officer to seek a reversal by this Court of that decision. In Blodgett v. Silberman, 277 U. S. 1, 7, the Court granted certiorari on the application of the State Tax Commissioner of Connecticut who sought review of the decision of the Supreme Court of Errors of the State so far as it denied the right created by its statute to tax the transfer of certain securities, which had been placed for safekeeping in New York, on the ground that they 10 1 Stat. 73, 85, 86. 11 "38 Stat. 790; see, also, Act of September 6, 1916, 39 Stat. 726. Opinion of the Court. 307 U.S. were not within the taxing jurisdiction of Connecticut. Entertaining jurisdiction, this Court reversed the judgment in that respect. Id., p. 18. 12 The question received most careful consideration in the case of Boynton v. Hutchinson Gas Co., 291 U. S. 656, where the Supreme Court of Kansas had held a state statute to be repugnant to the Federal Constitution, and the Attorney General of the State applied for certiorari. His application was opposed upon the ground that he had merely an official interest in the controversy and the decisions were invoked upon which the Government relies in challenging our jurisdiction in the instant case.1 Because of its importance, and contrary to our usual practice, the Court directed oral argument on the question whether certiorari should be granted, and after that argument, upon mature deliberation, granted the writ. The writ was subsequently dismissed but only because of a failure of the record to show service of summons and severance upon the appellees in the state court who were not parties to the proceedings here. 292 U. S. 601. This decision with respect to the scope of our jurisdiction has been followed in later cases. In Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo, 298 U. S. 587, we granted certiorari on an application by the warden of a city prison to review the decision of the Court of Appeals of the State on habeas corpus, ruling that the minimum wage law of the State violated the Federal Constitution. This Court decided the case on the merits. In Kelly v. Washington ex rel. Foss Co., 302 U. S. 1, we granted certiorari, on the application of the state authorities charged with the enforcement of the state law relating to the inspection and regulation of vessels, to review the decision of the state court holding the statute invalid in its application to navigable waters. We concluded that the state act had a permissible field of operation and the decision of the 12 See cases cited in Note 3. 433 Opinion of the Court. state court in holding the statute completely unenforceable in deference to federal law was reversed. This class of cases in which we have exercised our appellate jurisdiction on the application of state officers. may be said to recognize that they have an adequate interest in the controversy by reason of their duty to enforce the state statutes the validity of which has been drawn in question. In none of these cases could it be said that the state officers invoking our jurisdiction were sustaining any "private damage." While one who asserts the mere right of a citizen and taxpayer of the United States to complain of the alleged invalid outlay of public moneys has no standing to invoke the jurisdiction of the federal courts (Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 480, 486, 487), the Court has sustained the more immediate and substantial right of a resident taxpayer to invoke the interposition of a court of equity to enjoin an illegal use of moneys by a municipal corporation. Crampton v. Zabriskie, 101 U. S. 601, 609; Frothingham v. Mellon, supra. In Heim v. McCall, 239 U. S. 175, we took jurisdiction on a writ of error sued out by a property owner and taxpayer, who had been given standing in the state court, for the purpose of reviewing its decision sustaining the validity under the Federal Constitution, of a state statute as applied to contracts for the construction of public works in the City of New York, the enforcement of which was alleged to involve irreparable loss to the city and hence to be inimical to the interests of the taxpayer. In Smiley v. Holm, 285 U. S. 355, we granted certiorari on the application of one who was an "elector," as well as a "citizen" and "taxpayer," and who assailed under the Federal Constitution a state statute establishing congressional districts. Passing upon the merits we held that the function of a state legislature in prescribing the time, place and manner of holding elections for representatives Opinion of the Court. 307 U.S. in Congress under Article I, § 4, was a law-making function in which the veto power of the state governor participates, if under the state constitution the governor has that power in the course of the making of state laws, and accordingly reversed the judgment of the state court. We took jurisdiction on certiorari in a similar case from New York where the petitioners were "citizens and voters of the State" who had sought a mandamus to compel the Secretary of State of New York to certify that representatives in Congress were to be elected in the congressional districts as defined by a concurrent resolution of the Senate and Assembly of the legislature. There the state court, construing the provision of the Federal Constitution as contemplating the exercise of the lawmaking power, had sustained the defense that the concurrent resolution was ineffective as it had not been submitted to the Governor for approval, and refused the writ of mandamus. We affirmed the judgment. Koenig v. Flynn, 285 U. S. 375. In the light of this course of decisions, we find no departure from principle in recognizing in the instant case that at least the twenty senators whose votes, if their contention were sustained, would have been sufficient to defeat the resolution ratifying the proposed constitutional amendment, have an interest in the controversy which, treated by the state court as a basis for entertaining and deciding the federal questions, is sufficient to give the Court jurisdiction to review that decision. Second. The participation of the Lieutenant Governor.-Petitioners contend that, in the light of the powers and duties of the Lieutenant Governor and his relation to the Senate under the state constitution, as construed by the supreme court of the state, the Lieutenant Governor was not a part of the "legislature" so that under Article V of the Federal Constitution, he could be permitted to have a deciding vote on the ratification of the 433 Opinion of the Court. proposed amendment, when the senate was equally divided. Whether this contention presents a justiciable controversy, or a question which is political in its nature and hence not justiciable, is a question upon which the Court is equally divided and therefore the Court expresses no opinion upon that point. Third. The effect of the previous rejection of the amendment and of the lapse of time since its submission. 1. The state court adopted the view expressed by textwriters that a state legislature which has rejected an amendment proposed by the Congress may later ratify.1 The argument in support of that view is that Article V says nothing of rejection but speaks only of ratification and provides that a proposed amendment shall be valid as part of the Constitution when ratified by three-fourths of the States; that the power to ratify is thus conferred upon the State by the Constitution and, as a ratifying power, persists despite a previous rejection. The opposing view proceeds on an assumption that if ratification by "Conventions" were prescribed by the Congress, a convention could not reject and, having adjourned sine die, be reassembled and ratify. It is also premised, in accordance with views expressed by text-writers," that ratification if once given cannot afterwards be rescinded and the amendment rejected, and it is urged that the same effect in the exhaustion of the State's power to act should be ascribed to rejection; that a State can act "but once, either by convention or through its legislature." "Jameson on Constitutional Conventions, §§ 576-581; Willoughby on the Constitution, § 329a. 14 Jameson, op. cit., §§ 582-584; Willoughby, op. cit., § 329a; Ames, "Proposed Amendments to the Constitution," House Doc. No. 353, Pt. 2, 54th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 299, 300. |