Free Republic

The United States Supreme Court, on a 6-3 vote, has adopted a compromise position on the meaning of the independent state legislature theory. The position of the Court, in a decision by Chief Justice Roberts, is one that rejects the argument that North Carolina offered: that a state supreme court could not even apply a state constitution’s protection for the right to vote when it comes to federal elections. Under this maximalist version, rejected by the Court today, state legislatures had a free-floating power to do whatever they wanted in federal elections, limited only by federal constitutional limits. BUT, the...

embers of the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority just last week took the next step in a little-noticed, but extremely dangerous, project: attempting to jam into law a radical misinterpretation of the Constitution’s elections and electors clauses, which, if successful, would create electoral chaos across the country. Before next summer, and well in advance of the 2024 presidential election, the Court could strip state courts and state constitutions of their ability to check and balance state legislators when they make laws for federal elections, giving partisan majorities near-total control over how voters cast ballots and how those ballots are counted. And...