(C) Daily Montanan
This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Supreme Court agrees to hear redistricting, gerrymandering case – Daily Montanan [1]

['Rob Schofield', 'More From Author', '- June']

Date: 2022-06-30  

The U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it will hear a North Carolina redistricting case that one prominent constitutional scholar described to The New York Times as “an 800-pound gorilla brooding in the background of election law cases working their way up from state courts.”

In Moore v. Harper, North Carolina Republicans argue that it was and is unconstitutional for state courts to review redistricting maps produced by the General Assembly — even if those maps violate other constitutional protections.

The basis of the Republican lawmakers’ argument is something called the “independent state legislature doctrine,” which is based on a literal reading of the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause, which reads: “The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”

Numerous scholars, advocates and jurists have long rejected such an argument and, as recently as 2019 in the Rucho vs. Common Cause case (in which the high court said it lacked authority to strike down North Carolina maps for partisan gerrymandering), a majority of the Court seemed to make clear that state courts are an appropriate venue for such challenges to proceed.

Since that time, however, members of the court’s conservative wing have expressed a desire to revisit the issue. In March, when North Carolina Republican plaintiffs sought unsuccessfully to obtain an emergency order from the court blocking the state Supreme Court’s adoption of a new congressional district map, Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch indicated that they would have granted the request. In addition, while he rejected the idea of granting the emergency request, Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated that he thought the issue should be considered in the fall term that commences this October.

Anti-gerrymandering and pro-democracy advocates, who have repeatedly decried the independent state legislature doctrine as “radical” and “dangerous,” were swift to issue denunciations of the Court’s order.

In a joint statement issued by North Carolina advocacy groups, Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina described the effort by Republican lawmakers to insulate redistricting efforts from state judicial review as “a radical power grab (in which) self-serving politicians want to defy our state’s highest court and impose illegal voting districts upon the people of North Carolina.”

Phillips vowed to continue to combat the GOP effort, saying “we must stop this dangerous attack on our freedom to vote.”

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2022/06/30/supreme-court-agrees-to-hear-redistricting-gerrymandering-case/

Published and (C) by Daily Montanan
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/