Supreme Court Rejects Independent State Legislature Theory

Today the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 in Moore v. Harper, rejecting attempts to free state legislatures from checks and balances when making rules for federal elections.

Wendy Weiser, vice president for Democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, had the following comment:

“Today the Supreme Court rejected the independent state legislature theory, the radical notion that could have undermined voting rights and upended our elections. The independent state legislature theory is now dead. State courts can now freely enforce constitutional rights and guarantees as they have for hundreds of years. Our system of checks and balances still stands. The court noted that federal courts can, in extreme circumstances, review state court decisions to see if they 'exceed the ordinary bounds of judicial review.’

“We would like to congratulate the litigants in Moore and their attorneys: Common Cause, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Rebecca Harper, the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters, and the private law firms that worked with them. And we would like to thank the many constitutional scholars, historians, election officials, retired judges, civil rights groups, members of Congress, and others who filed briefs in the case.”