The governor of North Carolina explores the stakes of Moore v. Harper.
By Chris Conway Senior Staff Editor, Opinion |
Roy Cooper has been around North Carolina politics for a long time. |
A Democrat, he was re-elected to a second term as governor in 2020. Before becoming governor, he served four terms as attorney general. He was a state senator for 10 years before that, including serving a few years as the majority leader. He also held a seat in the State House of Representatives earlier in his career. |
So Cooper knows a little bit about politics and elections. And as he details in a guest essay this week, that world will be turned upside down if the Supreme Court embraces a legal theory it will consider this week that posits that only state legislatures are empowered by the U.S. Constitution to regulate federal elections. Under this view, in the case of Moore v. Harper, state courts have no authority to interfere. |
It's known as the "independent state legislature theory." |
"If the court endorses this doctrine," Cooper writes, "it would give state legislatures sole power over voting laws, congressional redistricting, and potentially even the selection of presidential electors and the proper certification of election winners." He adds: "This alarming argument could fundamentally reshape American democracy." |
Consider his home state, where the legislature, known as the General Assembly, is controlled by Republicans. In 2021, legislators approved a congressional districting plan that would have provided an enormous advantage to Republicans in a purple state where the split among Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters is roughly even. Critics said districts were drawn so that the Republicans would be favored for as many as 10 of the state's 14 congressional seats. |
A group of voters sued, and the State Supreme Court ruled that the map was an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander. As the court put it: "When a districting plan systematically makes if harder for one group of voters to elect a governing majority than another group of voters of equal size — the General Assembly unconstitutionally infringes upon that voter's fundamental right to vote." |
Had the independent state legislature theory been in place, the court would have been barred from stepping in. And there would have been no recourse in the federal courts; in 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that partisan gerrymandering was a political issue beyond its jurisdiction. |
The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hold oral arguments on the case on Wednesday. Four justices on the nine-member court have suggested that they are sympathetic to the theory. |
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