“The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a legal theory that would have radically reshaped how federal elections are conducted by giving state legislatures largely unchecked power to set all sorts of rules for federal elections and to draw congressional maps warped by partisan gerrymandering,” the New York Times reports
The vote was 6 to 3, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
The Constitution, Roberts wrote, “does not exempt state legislatures from the ordinary constraints imposed by state law.”
Washington Post: “Under the theory advanced by North Carolina’s Republican legislative leaders, but rejected by the court, state lawmakers throughout the country would have had exclusive authority to structure federal elections, subject only to intervention by Congress.”
Rick Hasen: “But make no mistake. This gives the U.S. Supreme Court the ultimate say over the meaning of state law in the midst of an election dispute. This is a bad, but not awful, result.”
