In a 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court appears to have rejected what many legal scholars called an “obscure theory” regarding which branch of government has the most authority to make election laws.
In a decision handed down on Tuesday, a majority of justices rejected the argument that state legislatures exclusively have the power to write laws and make rules regarding the conduct of federal elections without any oversight from courts.
The opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts noted that the Elections Clause of Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution “does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson were in the majority. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, in which Justice Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito joined, Fox News noted.
“State courts retain the authority to apply state constitutional restraints when legislatures act under the power conferred upon them by the Elections Clause,” Roberts wrote.
“But federal courts must not abandon their own duty to exercise judicial review. In interpreting state law in this area, state courts may not so exceed the bounds of ordinary judicial review as to unconstitutionally intrude upon the role specifically reserved to state legislatures by Article I, Section 4, of the Federal Constitution,” the majority opinion notes further.
Fox News added:
At issue in the case, Moore v. Harper, was a constitutional dispute over the power of a state court to regulate federal elections – in this case, gerrymandered redistricting maps. Some state lawmakers were seeking a favorable interpretation of the “independent state legislature” (ISL) theory, asking for near-total control over regulation of federal elections for president and members of Congress.
The case went to the high Court after a North Carolina state court threw out GOP-drawn congressional maps first submitted in November 2021.
The maps were deemed unconstitutional by a majority Democrat State Supreme Court, with the GOP maps seemingly giving the Republican-led legislature an advantage in the state’s 14 congressional districts.
The court-drawn maps were ultimately employed in the state’s midterm elections, resulting in an equal allocation of seven seats for each political party. The Republican-led state legislature argued that the utilization of these maps infringed upon the General Assembly’s constitutional right, as stipulated by the elections clause.
The Republican-led legislature petitioned the Supreme Court to invoke the ISL doctrine, which relies on the interpretation of the Constitution to assert that state legislatures possess “plenary” or unrestricted authority to determine the procedures for conducting elections, with minimal involvement from state judicial review, Fox noted further.
Article 1 of the Constitution says: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”
Advocates from the GOP assert that the outcome of the case could have far-reaching implications for the integrity and security of elections across the nation. They argue that if the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision is upheld, it could potentially grant state and federal courts expanded powers to intervene in forthcoming election proceedings.
Derek Mueller, professor University of Iowa College of Law, noted that the ruling leaves open “unanswered questions” about the role of state courts in election cases.
“It is clear that state courts and state constitutions have a role to play in limiting how state legislatures go about the job of setting the rules for federal elections. But the Court’s opinion expressly leaves open the unanswered questions of when state courts go too far beyond ‘the ordinary bounds of judicial review such that they arrogate to themselves the power vested in state legislatures,'” Mueller told the network.
“In other words, the door is not closed on these challenges, and open questions remain in the 2024 election and beyond.”
