{"id":105394,"date":"2022-12-07T15:26:55","date_gmt":"2022-12-07T15:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=105394"},"modified":"2022-12-07T15:26:58","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T15:26:58","slug":"how-the-independent-legislature-case-before-scotus-could-upend-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=105394","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;How the \u2018independent legislature\u2019 case before SCOTUS could upend elections&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2022\/12\/06\/conservative-scotus-majority-under-scrutiny-in-major-independent-legislature-elections-case-00072429\" target=\"_blank\">Politico<\/a>: &#8220;Conservative attorneys hope to advance a legal idea in front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday that would give state legislatures more control over elections \u2014 which could have a dramatic impact on everything from who gets elected to Congress to what rules voters must follow to cast their ballots in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But it is unclear if the court will embrace the \u201cindependent state legislature\u201d theory underpinning the case \u2014 and it will likely come down to divisions within the court\u2019s conservative majority when they hear arguments in\u00a0<em>Moore v. Harper<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The case stems from a fight over North Carolina\u2019s redistricting maps, but the arguments involved could affect state rules on things like voter ID, mail voting and vote-counting processes. The North Carolina state Supreme Court threw out new political maps drawn by the GOP-controlled legislature on the grounds that they were an illegal partisan gerrymander, and a court-drawn map ultimately replaced the one enacted by the lawmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Republican legislative leaders sought to block that new map at the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the Elections Clause in the U.S. Constitution leaves little room \u2014 or no room at all, in the most expansive version of the \u201cindependent state legislature\u201d theory \u2014 for state courts to weigh in on laws that govern congressional elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The theory was once on the fringes of election law discourse, but it has now gained significant traction among conservative election lawyers. And if it\u2019s endorsed by the nation\u2019s high court, it would mean a\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2022\/03\/09\/gop-pushes-for-an-earthquake-in-american-electoral-power-00015402\" target=\"_blank\">dramatic shift of the jurisprudence<\/a>\u00a0around election law, rolling back state judicial oversight and giving state legislatures near-unchecked power to set the rules, absent action from the federal government.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politico: &#8220;Conservative attorneys hope to advance a legal idea in front of the Supreme Court on Wednesday that would give state legislatures more control over elections \u2014 which could have a dramatic impact on everything from who gets elected to Congress to what rules voters must follow to cast their ballots in 2024. But it&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105394"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105395,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105394\/revisions\/105395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}