By a 6-3 vote, the court rejected the “independent state legislature” theory in a case about North Carolina’s congressional map. The once-fringe legal theory broadly argued that state courts have little — or no — authority to question state legislatures on election laws for federal contests.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court’s opinion, joined by the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, along with two conservatives, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
The idea that state courts can’t intervene to rule on state election laws in federal elections flies in the face of the Constitution. Elections for federal office are run by the states, which means that any disputes about election laws in each individual state fall under state court jurisdiction. The Constitution has not stopped Republicans from attempting to short-circuit the will of the voters.
In North Carolina, the fight is over heavily gerrymandered maps. In Pennsylvania, Republicans have spent years using the independent state legislature theory as the backbone for their arguments to get rid of mail-in voting.
Trump had been planning to use the independent state legislature theory to argue that legislatures can overturn election results in swing states if he loses them in 2024.
Independent state legislature theory is a danger to democracy which the Supreme Court rejected in a bipartisan manner.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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