WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that North Carolina’s top court did not overstep its bounds in striking down a congressional districting plan as excessively partisan under state law.
The justices by a 6-3 vote rejected the broadest view of a case that could have transformed elections for Congress and president.
North Carolina Republicans had asked the court to leave state legislatures virtually unchecked by their state courts when dealing with federal elections.
Although the decision will not have a large impact on North Carolina, I’m glad this independent legislature theory is squashed. The idea that the state legislature should have unchecked authority is directly at odds with democratic principles.
It would have been the end of democracy in the USA, effectively. If “independent legislature” had passed, republican states would have never accepted an election result again.
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch would have dismissed the case because of the intervening North Carolina court action.
Was this the crux of their dissent, or did they disagree with the actual ruling in regards to the independent legislature theory? Having 3 justices endorse that theory would be alarming.
Happy this is settled for at least this iteration of the court. The idea that state legislatures can ignore their own state Constitution, that they themselves wrote, is absurd and paradoxical. Being bound by the state constitution isn’t giving or sharing power with the state courts, it’s a limitation placed on themselves by the state legislature.
