Roberts Charts Middle Path in Election Case

Supreme Court says both state and federal courts have role in evaluating state laws that regulate federal elections.

This morning, in Moore v. Harper, the Supreme Court by a 6-3 vote essentially told state courts not to go crazy in interpreting state laws regulating federal elections, because the U.S. Constitution’s Election Clause provides for federal judicial review of such interpretations. I hasten to add that the three dissenters didn’t so much disagree with that statement as disagreeing with the Court’s ruling at all, because the state court ruling at issue had, in the meantime, been withdrawn.

This was a challenge to North Carolina’s 2021 congressional redistricting plan. The Tar Heel State’s supreme court ruled that the legislature engaged in a too-partisan gerrymander that violated the state constitution’s “all elections shall be free” clause. The legislature appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the state court impermissibly intruded into its authority under the Elections Clause. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, namely the issue of whether a state’s judicial branch may nullify the regulations governing the “Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives . . . prescribed . . . by the Legislature thereof,” and replace them with regulations of the state courts’ own devising, based on vague state constitutional provisions purportedly vesting the state judiciary with power to prescribe whatever rules it deems appropriate to ensure a “fair” or “free” election.

This question squarely presented the “independent state legislature doctrine,” the idea that state lawmakers’ decisions with regard to federal elections were unreviewable by state courts. But while SCOTUS was considering the case, state elections changed SCONC’s composition and the newly composed court vacated its previous ruling, prompting SCOTUS to call for further briefing on mootness. Then the state supremes issued a replacement ruling, prompting the federal supremes to call for even more briefing. It was a lawyer’s dream! So what ultimately happened?