SCOTUS May Empower States To Overturn Elections

December 7, 2022 Politics, Republicans

Politico reports:

The Supreme Court struggled to find consensus Wednesday with a legal theory that could strip state courts’ ability to review election laws passed by legislatures, with a critical bloc of justices seemed likely to reject the most robust version of that theory that could mark a dramatic change in how states oversee elections.

The case — Moore v. Harper — surrounds North Carolina’s congressional map. There, the state Supreme Court tossed the maps drawn by the GOP-controlled Legislature as an illegal partisan gerrymander, with court-drawn maps ultimately being used for the 2022 election.

Republican legislators asked the U.S. Supreme Court to toss out those court-drawn maps, advancing a once-fringe legal idea called the “independent state legislature” theory, which argues that an interpretation of a clause in the U.S. Constitution leaves little — or no — room for state court review of election laws.

From the ACLU:



If the court sides with state lawmakers in Moore, the result could have far-reaching impacts. State courts, governors, and redistricting commissions could also lose their power to invalidate, veto, or draw congressional maps.

And the effects could apply well beyond gerrymandering, including dramatically changing how federal elections are conducted and giving state legislatures broad, unchecked power to set otherwise-illegal election rules.

This theory must be rejected regardless of any short-term partisan implications — remember, state courts also struck down partisan gerrymanders this year in blue states as well as red ones.

In the end, it is our democracy that stands to lose if the power to set election rules is unconstrained by the rule of law and constitutional checks and balances.

If the Supreme Court adopts the North Carolina legislators’ proposed rule in Moore, it will make it even easier for state legislatures to suppress the vote and subvert election results, and it will give both political parties the green light to draw gerrymandered election districts.

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