On June 30, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to take up the case Moore v. Harper during its next term, which began on October 2022.
The grant to hear the case seemed to broadcast an openness to embracing what’s known as the “independent state legislature theory,” or ISLT.
The law suit at the center of the case came about as a result of North Carolina’s Speaker of the House, Representative Tim Moore (R-Cleveland), suing a voter named Rebecca Harper, board member with organizational plaintiff Common Cause, over a Congressional map drawn by the state's GOP-controlled legislature. The North Carolina Supreme Court struck down this map as a partisan gerrymander in violation of the state Constitution.
Proponents of the ISLT argued that the North Carolina Supreme Court acted beyond its authority. On December 7, 2022 oral arguments were heard on this case.
The argument for upholding the legislature’s gerrymandering actions rested on Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution: “The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof, but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations…”
As Mitchell Zimmerman points out: "The provision does not say only state legislatures control federal elections, nor that courts cannot intervene, as the plaintiffs argue. It certainly does not say state lawmakers can ignore their state constitutions, which created state legislatures in the first place, or override the rights of their own citizens under state law...
Consider, for example, the First Amendment, which states: 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.' The First Amendment only speaks of Congress. But that doesn’t mean the president is free to shut down newspapers that criticize him, that judges can decide praying in some churches is okay and not in others, or that the police can forbid peaceful demonstrations."
In hearing that case, Kate Shaw noted that "it did
not seem that a majority of the Court is eager to embrace a sweeping ISLT. That said, a majority may be willing to sign onto some version of the theory, even if a more circumscribed one."
Court watchers and those interested in the integrity of the election process are now awaiting the actual decision of the court in this matter.
Sources:
https://www.mooreharper.org/about-moore-v-harper/
https://www.justsecurity.org/84409/oral ... l-rights/
https://otherwords.org/no-independent-s ... l-rights/ Don't mourn, organize.
-Joe Hill
The intrigue: Fifteen former and current Jan. 6 committee staffers tell The Washington Post they're angered and disillusioned by Vice Chair Liz Cheney's "push to focus the report primarily on former president Donald Trump."
The intrigue: Fifteen former and current Jan. 6 committee staffers tell The Washington Post they're angered and disillusioned by Vice Chair Liz Cheney's "push to focus the report primarily on former president Donald Trump."
