The Supreme Court affirmed that state courts could hold their legislatures accountable in redistricting matters and other issues influencing federal elections. This judgment dismisses the argument by Republicans in North Carolina, which, if accepted, could have fundamentally altered the dynamics of Congressional and Presidential races.
By a 6-3 vote, the Supreme Court sustained a decision by North Carolina’s highest court, invalidating a congressional redistricting scheme due to its extreme partisan nature under state law.
Chief Justice John Roberts, authoring the court’s decision, said that “state courts continue to have the power to enforce state constitutional limitations when legislatures operate under the authority granted to them by the Elections Clause. However, federal courts should not neglect their obligation to exercise judicial review.”
The Supreme Court did hint that there might be boundaries to state court attempts to regulate elections for Congress and the President.
However, the actual impact of this decision is limited as the North Carolina Supreme Court, now with a new Republican majority, has already reversed its redistricting decision.
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch would have chosen to disregard the case due to the subsequent action by the North Carolina court.
Another redistricting case from Ohio remains undecided should the justices wish to provide further clarification on this issue before next year’s elections.
On Tuesday, Derek Muller, a law professor and elections specialist at the University of Iowa, expressed that this decision leaves some wiggle room to dispute state court decisions on federal election issues. “These challenges are not entirely dismissed, and uncertainties persist for the 2024 election and beyond. However, such cases are likely to be exceptional. The vast majority of state court decisions that could influence federal elections will likely proceed unchanged,” stated Muller.
The North Carolina case garnered significant interest as four conservative justices indicated that the Supreme Court should limit state courts’ authority over presidential and congressional elections.
Detractors of the concept, the independent legislature theory, countered that a decisive ruling favouring North Carolina Republicans could have broader implications than just redistricting and could intensify political polarization.
Over 170 state constitutional provisions, more than 650 state laws assigning authority to set election policies to state and local officials, and thousands of regulations, including polling place locations, were potentially at risk, as reported by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.
In December, the justices heard appeals from Republican legislative leaders in the state, whose attempts to delineate congressional districts heavily in their favour were obstructed by a Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court because the GOP map conflicted with the state constitution.
The court-generated map resulted in each party gaining seven seats in the fiercely contested midterm elections last year in North Carolina.
The justices had to determine whether the provision in the U.S. Constitution granting state legislatures the authority to regulate the “times, places, and manner” of congressional elections excludes state courts from the procedure.
A prominent conservative and former federal judge, Michael Luttig, part of the legal team defending the North Carolina court decision, warned last fall that the outcome could be revolutionary for American elections. “This is the single most consequential case on American democracy – and for American democracy – in the nation’s history,” Luttig stated.
Prominent Republican legislators in North Carolina argued before the Supreme Court that the Constitution’s “meticulously defined boundaries vest the regulation of federal elections solely in the hands of state legislatures and Congress.”
Over nearly three hours of arguments, the justices appeared hesitant to issue a sweeping decision. Both liberal and conservative justices seemed critical of the challenge’s central premise, requesting them to effectively strip state courts of their power to invalidate gerrymandered congressional district maps drawn by the legislature based on their violation of state constitutions.
A new round of redistricting is anticipated in North Carolina, which will likely produce a map with a more significant number of Republican districts.
As such, while this ruling rejects the ‘independent legislature theory’ touted by Republicans and provides a temporary resolution to the partisan disputes over redistricting in North Carolina, it may have only shifted the landscape of this debate. With a new round of redistricting likely to produce more Republican districts, the question of how election maps are drawn and by whom will remain a contentious issue in American politics. This saga underlines the ongoing struggle for control and influence in the political landscape, with the implications of these redistricting debates having the potential to shape the outcomes of future elections.
