How a Supreme Court case could inject chaos into the 2024 elections
Ryan King
Video Embed
A hotly contested election case from North Carolina has the potential to cause confusion for 2024 election procedures if it’s not resolved in time, some experts fear.
At issue is a controversial concept known as the “independent state legislature theory,” which posits that state legislatures have broad discretion over administering federal elections at the state level, with minimal checks and balances from state courts or even the governor.
BIDEN SAYS DEBT LIMIT TALKS ARE ‘MOVING ALONG’ BUT ‘NOT THERE YET’
Members of the Supreme Court are contemplating a case — Moore v. Harper — that explores the theory, but there are concerns that the high court will not adequately resolve the issue in time for the 2024 elections.
Moore v. Harper features a dispute over North Carolina’s Supreme Court dismissing a GOP-backed apportionment plan for being too partisan.
Republicans filed a challenge to the high court, but then conservatives managed to regain control of the state Supreme Court. The now-5-2 Republican-majority court subsequently opted to rehear the redistricting case. The court scraped its prior ruling late last month, which was the underpinning of the Moore v. Harper case pending before the Supreme Court.
Now there are questions about whether the Supreme Court will reach a final verdict on the legitimacy of the independent state legislature theory. This is in part because there are now major questions about standing given that the North Carolina state Supreme Court overturned the prior ruling at issue.
Should the high court fail to weigh in on the issue, state legislatures may feel emboldened to have free reign with gerrymandering, election integrity laws, and more, likely drawing major legal challenges.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court asked for additional briefing material on Moore v. Harper over whether it still had jurisdiction over the case. This signaled that it was mulling whether or not to punt.
Supporters of the theory contend that it’s based on a strict interpretation of the Constitution’s elections clause, which says, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof.”
Some conservative groups have stressed the importance of winning the case. Jason Snead of the Honest Elections Project previously told the Washington Examiner that an unfavorable ruling could “leave the door wide open to the Left’s anti-democracy campaign, which has saturated the courts with politicized lawsuits and introduced chaos to our elections.”
Not all legal experts want the high court to hand down a final decision.
“The letter my firm filed today in the dangerous Independent State Legislature theory case (Moore v. Harper) was short, sweet and 100% correct. ‘The Harper Respondents believe there is no non-frivolous basis for jurisdiction here,'” Marc Elias, a prominent lawyer who has done work on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, tweeted.
https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1656750119759273985
Elias is not a counsel of record in the case, but he appears to have concerns that the composition of the high court could result in it ruling the wrong way. The court held oral arguments in the case last year and appeared reluctant to back an aggressive interpretation of the theory.
Still, others wanted a definitive answer.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I at least want them to deal with the bomb before the ’24 elections,” Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who once gave advice to the Biden White House, said, per Politico.
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decisions on the swatch of outstanding cases on its docket over the coming weeks.