WASHINGTON (CN) — North Carolina lawmakers failed Tuesday to win over the U.S. Supreme Court with a controversial theory that could hand state legislatures unchecked power over elections.
"State courts retain the authority to apply state constitutional restraints when legislatures act under the power conferred upon them by the Elections Clause," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the 6-3 majority. "But federal courts must not abandon their own duty to exercise judicial review."
The blockbuster case was thrown for a loop earlier this year when the North Carolina Supreme Court decided to hear a second round of arguments in the case. Under the new GOP majority, the state high court reversed the ruling that the justices in Washington had already begun to consider, making it uncertain whether Roberts et al. had the authority to intervene.
Despite claims from the Biden administration and others involved in the case that the court no longer had jurisdiction, Roberts said the lower court’s reintervention did not moot the case.
“In other words, although partisan gerrymandering claims are no longer viable under the North Carolina Constitution, the North Carolina Supreme Court has done nothing to alter the effect of the judgment in Harper I enjoining the use of the 2021 maps,” Roberts wrote. “As a result, the legislative defendants’ path to complete relief runs through this Court.”
Justice Clarence Thomas — joined by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito — disagreed with the court’s jurisdictional finding. Thomas said the majority’s ruling should be considered an advisory opinion.
“By its own lights, the majority ‘is acting not as an Article III court,’ but as an ad hoc branch of a state legislature,” Thomas wrote in dissent. “That is emphatically not our job.”
On its face, the case is centered on North Carolina election districts redrawn with what once called an extreme partisan bent after the 2020 census. On its way to Washington, however, the case picked up some additional baggage: a novel theory advanced by the lawmakers premised on the idea that state legislatures hold supremacy over federal elections. While state courts normally serve as a check on lawmakers, the independent state legislature theory takes away that check. Lawmakers would be able to pass bills that violate the state constitution without state courts stepping in to stop them.
The independent state legislature theory stems from the elections clause of the Constitution, which says that federal elections shall “be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.” The state claims legislature in this clause is referring to the lawmaking process — which includes checks by the judiciary — whereas Republican lawmakers argue legislature includes only the general assembly.
In the early stages of the case, the court that found lawmakers had gerrymandered the new maps said the gerrymandering claims were nevertheless nonjusticiable political questions under the North Carolina Constitution. The state Supreme Court reversed, ruling the maps unconstitutional.
Lawmakers initially complied with the ruling to draw new maps, but their second attempt arrived at the same result. This time, after ruling the revised maps unconstitutional, the three-judge panel revised the maps itself rather than ordering yet another redraw.
State legislators went to Washington at this juncture. Over the objection of three of the high court’s conservatives — Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — the court declined to offer emergency relief and added the case to the upcoming arguments calendar.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar warned the justices in December against siding with lawmakers, claiming it would “wreak havoc in the administration of elections across the nation.”
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