A pair of cases on the Supreme Court's "shadow docket" could eviscerate legal safeguards protecting

[EleanorR]

A pair of cases on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket” could eviscerate legal safeguards protecting free and fair elections.

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A pair of cases are currently pending before the Supreme Court that could fundamentally rewrite the rules of US elections.

Both cases are redistricting cases. In Moore v. Harper, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down gerrymandered congressional maps drawn by the state’s Republican legislature. In Toth v. Chapman, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court selected a congressional map for the state after its Republican legislature and Democratic governor deadlocked on what that map should look like.

In both cases, Republicans claim that state courts are not allowed to intervene in redistricting cases because something called the “independent state legislature doctrine” forbids them from doing so.

In the worst-case scenario for democracy, should the Court embrace this doctrine, state constitutions would cease to provide any constraint on state lawmakers who wish to skew federal elections in their party’s favor. State courts would also lose their power to strike down anti-democratic state laws. And state governors, who ordinarily have the power to veto new state election laws, would lose this veto power.

https://www.vox.com/22958543/supreme-court-gerrymandering-redistricting-north-carolina-pennsylvania-moore-toth-amy-coney-barrett

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[Faux pas]

1. It's

shit like this that has made me actually hate politics. It used to be one of my favorite things.