If the Court rules in North Carolina’s favor, the ruling would reduce voter oversight of state legislatures and likely affect the outcome of various political races across the state — as well as the 2024 presidential election.
The Facts of Moore v. Harper
Moore v. Harper focuses on congressional maps drawn by Republican lawmakers in North Carolina after the 2020 census. The maps were challenged in court by Democratic voters and nonprofits who argued that the districts were unfairly weighted in favor of Republicans, which violated the state constitution. . Earlier this year, the North Carolina Supreme Court blocked the state from using the maps in primaries and ordered that the districts be redrawn. “Today, we answer this question: does our constitution recognize that the people of this state have the power to choose those who govern us, giving each of us an equally powerful voice through our vote? Or does our constitution give its members the General Assembly, as they argue here, unlimited power to draw electoral maps that keep them and our members of Congress in place as long as they want, regardless of the will of the people, making some votes more powerful from others;”. Justice Robin Hudson wrote the majority opinion of the state’s highest court, which blocked the use of controlled maps. “We believe that our Constitution’s Bill of Rights guarantees the equal power of every person’s voice in our government by voting in the elections that matter.” Republican state lawmakers in February asked in an emergency appeal that the United States Supreme Court stop the state’s order to redraw the maps, though the request was denied. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the denial. In their dissent, the justices wrote that the independent legislature doctrine was an important issue for the court to resolve. The new maps, drawn by experts appointed by the North Carolina Supreme Court, were used in the state’s May 17 primary. In another appeal to overturn the state Supreme Court’s ruling, Timothy K. Moore, the Speaker of the North Carolina House of Representatives, filed a writ of certiorari — a request that the United States Supreme Court review the case. The review was granted on June 30 with the case to be heard at the High Court sitting in October.
Doctrine of Independent State Legislature
At the heart of the case, according to the SCOTUS blog, is a legal theory called the “independent legislature doctrine,” which suggests that, under the Constitution’s election clause, “only the legislature has the power to regulate federal elections , without intervention from the state courts”.
“The theory would prevent state courts from protecting voting rights in federal elections by eliminating state constitutional protections in those elections,” legal experts Leah Litman, Kate Shaw and Carolyn Shapiro wrote about the case in an opinion piece for Washington Post. “And he would do so at a time when voting rights are under attack, including from the Supreme Court itself.”
Under the strictest readings of the doctrine, provisions in state constitutions that prevent lawmakers from influencing elections would be overturned. The governor, who usually could veto new election laws, would lose the ability to do so, and state courts would be unable to overturn undemocratic laws or challenge the districts that had been drawn.
That interpretation of the constitution “could make it easier for state legislatures to suppress voting, create unfair districts, allow partisan interference in the counting of ballots,” the Brennan Center for Justice wrote in the case.
Conservative Supreme Court justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have all upheld versions of the legal theory in previous court decisions. Their support signals that they will vote in this case to overturn previous legal precedent that deemed such cases highly partisan and therefore “unjusticiable” and prevented the nation’s highest court from weighing in on the state’s partisan issues, including election fraud maps.
The Court’s impending decision could derail efforts to combat gerrymandering in battleground states nationwide and give state legislatures unfettered control over how federal elections are conducted.
“This case has the potential to fundamentally reexamine the relationship between state legislatures and state courts in protecting voting rights in federal elections,” election law expert Richard Hasen wrote on the Election Law blog. “It could also provide the path to an electoral upset.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case “a judicial coup in the making.”
“If the President and Congress don’t constrain the Court now, the Court is signaling that they will come for the next presidential election,” the New York Democrat tweeted. “All our leaders – regardless of party – must recognize this constitutional crisis for what it is.”
