by WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to place new limits on state courts reviewing certain election-related matters, ruling against North Carolina Republicans fighting for a map of congressional districts it would heavily favor. to their candidates.
The justices ruled in a 6-3 vote that the North Carolina Supreme Court was acting within its authority in concluding that the map constituted partisan tampering under the state Constitution.
In doing so, the court refused to adopt a broad version of a hitherto obscure legal argument called the “independent state legislature” theory, which Republicans say limits the authority of state courts to strike down certain election laws enacted by the state legislatures. Supporters of former President Donald Trump cited the theory in several instances during the 2020 presidential election and its aftermath.
The ruling was welcomed by voting rights groups and Democrats who were concerned about the implications of a ruling that would limit the power of state courts in 2024 and beyond.
“Today, the Supreme Court rejected the theory of fringe independent state legislature that threatened to upend our democracy and dismantle our system of checks and balances,” said former President Barack Obama. tweeted.
The independent state legislature’s argument hinges on language in the Constitution’s Election Clause which says that electoral rules “shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”
Supporters of the theory, which has never been upheld by the Supreme Court, say the language supports the notion that, when it comes to federal election rules, legislatures hold ultimate power under state law, potentially regardless of possible restrictions imposed by state constitutions.
“State courts retain the authority to apply state constitutional restrictions when legislatures act on the power vested in them by the Election Clause,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
He added, however, that state courts do not have “free rein” when there are conflicts with federal law. In those situations, the federal courts can intervene, the court concluded.
“In interpreting state law in this area, state courts cannot exceed the bounds of ordinary judicial review so as to unconstitutionally intrude on the role specifically reserved for state legislatures,” Roberts said.
After the then-Democratic controlled North Carolina state Supreme Court issued the ruling last year, the court shifted to Republican control after the November midterm elections and recently overturned the decision, a move which raised questions about whether the judges needed to decide the case. .
Dissenting, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by fellow Conservatives Justice Samuel Alito and Justice Neil Gorsuch, said the case was moot as a result.
Thomas complained that the decision will lead to more confusion in the lower courts that could lead to more cases like the Bush v. Gore of the Supreme Court issued in 2000, which ultimately led to Republican George W. Bush taking office as president.
The court, Thomas said, “opens up a new arena for Bush-style controversies over state election law, and a much more uncertain one.”
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh made clear in a separate opinion that the court is likely to visit the scope of state court authority in a later case.
In Tuesday’s ruling, the court “acknowledged and articulated a general principle for federal court review of state court decisions in federal election cases,” it said.
“In the future, the court should and presumably will distill that general principle into a more specific standard,” he added.
Regardless, the map of Congress in North Carolina will be redrawed before the 2024 election due to a state law provision that says provisional maps can be used for only one election cycle. As a result of the most recent ruling by the North Carolina Supreme Court, that map is likely to lean heavily toward the Republicans.
A Supreme Court ruling accepting the theory would have affected not only redistricting disputes, but also other election-related rules on issues such as voting by mail and voter access to the polls that legislatures might attempt. enact even when state courts have held that those rules violate state constitutions. The theory could also call into question the power of governors to veto legislation.
Then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist adopted a version of the theory in 2000 in Bush v. Gore. During oral argument in December, several justices cited the opinion of Rehnquist, who did not win a majority at the time, in support of the notion that there should be some restrictions on the scope of state officials, including judges, to make changes. in election laws enacted by legislatures that are not anchored in law.
The North Carolina case was being closely watched for its potential impact on next year’s presidential election.
“The Supreme Court took an important and crucial step today to protect our system of checks and balances,” said Hilary Harris Klein, an attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which challenged the maps drawn by Republicans in North Carolina.
“Today’s decision will ensure that voters continue to have the full protection of state constitutions against harmful and undemocratic voter suppression and election rigging.”
Eric Holder, who served as attorney general in the Obama administration and now backs Democratic redistricting efforts, said the ruling “preserves the vital role state courts play in protecting free elections and fair maps for the American people”.
But Jason Torchinsky, a Republican lawyer who works on election litigation, said the court “made it clear that state Supreme Courts cannot become supreme legislatures” and predicted more cases on the subject.
Republicans led by Tim Moore, the speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, invoked the theory after the state Supreme Court struck down the map of congressional districts in February last year.
The state court then ruled that the 14 congressional districts, which Republicans drew to maximize the influence of Republican voters in a state heavily contested by both major parties, were “illegal partisan rigging.” The court’s then-liberal majority said the maps violated several state constitutional provisions, one of which requires that “all elections be free.”
Voting rights advocates and Democratic voters turned to state court after the US Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that claims of partisan district rigging could not be heard in federal court, but left open the possibility that state courts could address the issue.
Moore and other Republicans immediately asked the Supreme Court to reinstate the maps, saying the state court had exceeded its authority. The high court agreed to take the case, but left in its place a replacement map used for last year’s midterm elections. Democrats and Republicans each won seven seats.
The Supreme Court in 2020 declined to intervene in the various election-related cases that raised the theory, but during the litigation four conservative justices it indicated some support for him, giving his supporters hope that they might be a majority willing to accept him.
There are several versions of the argument, some of which would simply limit the authority of state courts in certain circumstances and others of which go further by granting state legislatures virtually unlimited authority.
Supporters of the theory in briefs filed in court included John Eastman, the lawyer involved in Trump’s efforts to nullify the 2020 election who argued that then-Vice President Mike Pence could block the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021.
Several conservative groups that push for greater voting restrictions and say voter fraud is a major problem have also endorsed the theory.
Democrats and voting rights activists issued stark warnings about the case’s potential impact in light of attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, though many high-profile Republican candidates who denied or questioned Biden’s victory lost. in last year’s midterm elections.
