Supreme Court Won’t Let State Legislatures Set Election Rules Unchecked

(CTN News) – Earlier this year, the Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, rejected the conservative argument that state legislatures should have the power to set election rules with little oversight from the state courts in order to ensure fair elections.

A 6-3 vote rejected the “independent state legislature” theory in a case about North Carolina’s congressional map. It argued that state courts have little power to question election laws for federal contests, once considered a fringe legal theory.

Roberts wrote the opinion with liberals Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, and conservatives Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito dissented.

As a result, the nation’s top court upheld the power of state courts to review election laws under state constitutions, while urging federal courts to “not abandon their own duty to exercise judicial review.”

In recent years, conservative legal activists backed by GOP operatives urged the high court to expand state legislatures’ powers.

In 2024, the Supreme Court’s adoption of the theory would have upended congressional elections – and potentially the presidential election.

According to the Supreme Court, the state constitutions can still be interpreted by state courts to limit lawmakers’ powers.

Despite the Elections Clause, Roberts wrote, state legislatures can still exercise judicial review under the federal Constitution, which founded the theory of independent state legislatures.

In Roberts’ majority opinion, state courts can’t limit legislatures’ actions. Despite the chief justice’s warning to state judges, the decision issued Tuesday left open the question of when state court rulings go too far.

It’s a complex area with context-specific questions, Roberts wrote. Only state courts can’t arrogate to themselves the power to regulate federal elections vested in state legislatures.

Roberts’ opinion represented a major defeat for proponents of the independent state legislature theory, in part because he won a six-justice majority and effectively sidelined three of the court’s most conservative justices.

The court’s decision to issue a definitive opinion surprised some court watchers. Republican legislators challenged a North Carolina state Supreme Court ruling that legislatively drawn lines were illegal partisan gerrymanders. In the end, the 2020 election map was drawn by a court.

In the course of the U.S. Supreme Court hearing that took place in December, arguments regarding the case were heard.

In the wake of those arguments, the state’s Supreme Court announced it would rehear its own decision, a decision that follows the court’s shift from 4-3 Democratic jurists to 5-2 Republicans in November, after the court switched from a 4-3 vote to 5-2. Ultimately, the state court vacated its own previous decision, stating that partisan gerrymandering could not be adjudicated by this court.

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, partisan gerrymandering cannot be policed by federal courts under federal law based on its ruling in 2019.

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