Posted on 06/30/2022 8:24:42 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi
The Supreme Court’s announcement on Thursday that it will hear Moore v. Harper, a case that could concentrate an unprecedented amount of power in gerrymandered state legislatures, should alarm anyone who cares about democracy.
The case is perhaps the gravest threat to American democracy since the January 6 attack. It seeks to reinstate gerrymandered congressional maps that were struck down by North Carolina’s highest court because they “subordinated traditional neutral redistricting criteria in favor of extreme partisan advantage” for the Republican Party.
The plaintiffs argue that the state supreme court didn’t have the authority to strike these maps down, and rest their claim on legal arguments that would fundamentally alter how congressional and presidential elections are conducted.
Moore involves the “independent state legislature doctrine,” a theory that the Supreme Court has rejected many times over the course of more than a century — but that started to gain steam after Republican appointees gained a supermajority on the Supreme Court at the end of the Trump administration.
Under the strongest form of this doctrine, all state constitutional provisions that constrain state lawmakers’ ability to skew federal elections would cease to function. State courts would lose their power to strike down anti-democratic state laws, such as a gerrymander that violates the state constitution or a law that tosses out ballots for arbitrary reasons. And state governors, who ordinarily have the power to veto new state election laws, would lose that power.
As Justice Neil Gorsuch described this approach in a 2020 concurring opinion in a case concerning the deadline for casting mail-in ballots in Wisconsin, “the Constitution provides that state legislatures — not federal judges, not state judges, not state governors, not other state officials — bear primary responsibility for setting election rules.”
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
It’s ironic that they are claiming democracy (letting elected officials set policy rather than judges) is a threat to democracy.
Now if only we could convince the powers that be to require districts in a State to have the shortest practical length of district boundary line while enclosing the correct number of Persons (no other demographic) we could make an end of gerrymandering once and for all?
Where’s my fainting couch when I need it?!?!
That is up to elected state legislators, not the court.
I am fine with gerrymandering. Democrats were fine with it as well until they lost control over a majority of state legislatures....then they went to the courts and started all this complaining about gerrymandering.
Good. Our founders never meant to have a democracy. I certainly didn’t sign up for one.
Another threat to democracy.
My goodness. They never stop.
Did I say the courts?
Threats to democracy are a good thing SINCE THIS IS A REPUBLIC.
Liberal view: The Constitution is a danger to democracy. Of course by democracy liberals mean mob rule.
“ The case is perhaps the gravest threat to American democracy since the January 6 attack”
I speak leftist. Here’s the translation:
The case is perhaps the gravest threat to our tyrannical takeover since the January 6 kangaroo court lost all popularity.
Rats are fine with gerrymandering in NY and CA, and all the other shenanigans that produce one party rule. Stay awake patriots!!!
Could we get a supreme Court ruling on this “democracy” nonsense?
Any time I see “threat to Democracy” and “January 6th” together, it is a sign to side with whatever is going to be the “threat” and support it vigorously.
Funny but True.
The Left’s idea of ‘democracy’ is Authoritarianism/Totalitarianism......
If people want to see what Democrats really think of Gerrymandering they should look at a map of the Illinois Congressional districts.
oh, so having the popularly elected legislature set voting districts is a threat to democracy... but having 9 robed appointed, not elected, judges will save democratic, er, sorry, democracy.
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