{"id":115078,"date":"2023-06-28T02:24:19","date_gmt":"2023-06-28T02:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=115078"},"modified":"2023-06-28T02:24:21","modified_gmt":"2023-06-28T02:24:21","slug":"supreme-court-rejects-theory-that-would-have-transformed-american-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=115078","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Supreme Court Rejects Theory That Would Have Transformed American Elections&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2023\/06\/27\/us\/politics\/supreme-court-state-legislature-elections.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: &#8220;The Supreme Court on Tuesday\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/22pdf\/21-1271_3f14.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">rejected a legal theory<\/a>\u00a0that would have radically reshaped how federal elections are conducted by giving state legislatures largely unchecked power to set rules for federal elections and to draw congressional maps warped by partisan gerrymandering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The vote was 6 to 3, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. writing the majority opinion. The Constitution, he said, \u201cdoes not exempt state legislatures from the ordinary constraints imposed by state law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Neil M. Gorsuch dissented&#8230;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The case concerned the \u201cindependent state legislature\u201d theory. It is based on a reading of the Constitution\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/constitution.congress.gov\/browse\/article-1\/section-4\/#:~:text=Clause%201%20Elections%20Clause,the%20Places%20of%20chusing%20Senators.\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Elections Clause<\/a>, which says, \u201cThe times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Proponents of the strongest form of the theory say this means that no other organs of state government \u2014 not courts, not governors, not election administrators, not independent commissions \u2014 can alter a legislature\u2019s actions on federal elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chief Justice Roberts rejected that position. \u201cThe Elections Clause does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ruling soundly dismissed the theory, one that an unusually diverse array of lawyers, judges and scholars across the ideological spectrum viewed as extreme and dangerous. Adopting the theory, they warned, could have profound consequences for nearly every aspect of federal elections, including by erasing safeguards against partisan gerrymandering and curtailing the ability to challenge voting restrictions in state courts.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NY Times: &#8220;The Supreme Court on Tuesday\u00a0rejected a legal theory\u00a0that would have radically reshaped how federal elections are conducted by giving state legislatures largely unchecked power to set rules for federal elections and to draw congressional maps warped by partisan gerrymandering. The vote was 6 to 3, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. writing&#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_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115078","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=115078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115079,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115078\/revisions\/115079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}