In a 6-3 opinion, the nation’s high court rejected Republicans’ argument, known as the independent state legislature theory. (Getty Images)

By Lynn Bonner

The US Supreme Court rejected North Carolina Republican legislators’ argument that the state courts cannot review laws legislatures pass governing federal elections.

GOP legislators claimed the Elections Clause in the U.S. Constitution makes legislatures the sole state authorities on federal elections law, including congressional redistricting. Critics said the high court’s endorsement of the independent state legislature theory would cause chaos with state elections, with states trying to enforce a set of rules for state elections and another set for federal elections.

In a 6-3 opinion, the nation’s high court rejected Republicans’ argument, known as the independent state legislature theory.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Sam Alito dissented. Thomas wrote that the case was moot because the NC Supreme Court has already decided the question that brought Republican legislators to court in their favor.

“We are asked to decide whether the Elections Clause carves out an exception to this basic principle,” said the majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts. “We hold that it does not. The Elections Clause does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review.”

Indiana Involvement

The case drew national attention because of its potential to disrupt laws for federal elections across the country.

Women4Change Indiana Inc. filed a legal brief in the case, saying “Hoosiers have few paths to rectify the inequitable end product, which silences the voices of hundreds of thousands of voters across the state.” If the Court sides with the petitioners in Moore v. Harper “that problem will only get worse, and it will be increasingly difficult for states like Indiana to have the voices of all its citizens heard in Congress.”

Rep. Ed DeLaney, D-Indianapolis, applauded the courts’ rejection of the idea that state courts cannot protect citizens from gerrymandered congressional seats. This upholds the principle that no body of government is above the law or above the will of the people, he said.

“Democrats in Indiana hold only two out of nine congressional seats, but regularly see over 40% of the popular vote on a bad day. These maps are not reflective of the views of Hoosiers. Now that SCOTUS has given the power to reject gerrymandering to state courts, this gives our state courts the opportunity to intervene and secure fair election maps,” DeLaney said. “Extreme Republicans have not seemed to care about gerrymandering. They welcome it. Now the question is: Will our Republicans, including those in the General Assembly, stand up for free and fair elections?”

Reaction

The leader of Common Cause North Carolina, which was a party in the case, said in a statement that the opinion is a victory for American democracy.

“Today, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that state courts and state constitutions should serve as a critical check against abuses of power by legislators, Bob Phillips, Common Cause North Carolina executive director, said. “Now, we must ensure our state courts fulfill their duty to protect our freedoms against attacks by extremist politicians.”

The opinion affirms the February 2022 decision by the Democratic majority on the NC Supreme Court that congressional districts the Republican majority created were extreme party gerrymanders that required revision.

Roberts wrote that courts “may not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that they arrogate to themselves the power vested in state legislatures to regulate federal elections.”

“We decline to address whether the North Carolina Supreme Court strayed beyond the limits derived from the Elections Clause. The legislative defendants did not meaningfully present the issue in their petition for certiorari or in their briefing, nor did they press the matter at oral argument.”

When pressed during December’s oral arguments whether the state’s Democratic justices has misinterpreted the state constitution, the Republicans’ lawyer “reiterated that such an argument was ‘not our position in this Court.’”

Former US Attorney General Eric Holder applauded the decision, but said in a statement that the question should not have made it to the high court in the first place. Holder is chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. Voters who challenged the congressional districts as partisan gerrymanders were supported by the National Redistricting Foundation.

“By rejecting the independent state legislature theory, the Supreme Court preserved the vital role state courts play in protecting free elections and fair maps for the American people,” Holder said in a statement. “This is a victory for our system of checks and balances, the cornerstone of American democracy.

“Make no mistake, this appeal and the truly fringe, truly ideological theory it espouses should never have been brought before our nation’s highest tribunal in the first place, and it demonstrates the lengths to which too many in the Republican Party are willing to go in order to bend—even break—our democracy in order to hold onto illegitimate power.”

This article came from Indiana Capital Chronicle.