The fate of American elections is in Amy Coney Barrett's hands

[Nevilledog]

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b-boy bouiebaisse
@jbouie
even this underplays just how bananas then independent state legislature doctrine is, which if taken to its full conclusion, would essentially turn the clock back to the Articles.

vox.com
The fate of American elections is in Amy Coney Barrett’s hands
A pair of cases on the Supreme Court’s "shadow docket" could eviscerate legal safeguards protecting free and fair elections.
6:05 PM · Mar 4, 2022

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

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.

As Justice Neil Gorsuch described this approach in a 2020 concurring opinion, “the Constitution provides that state legislatures — not federal judges, not state judges, not state governors, not other state officials — bear primary responsibility for setting election rules.”

*snip*

[dchill]

1. Handmaid's Rules.

[Hoyt]

2. Don't know how this will be decided, but SC held solid on trump's BS.

[Nevilledog]

4. This is the future of elections. The only way these Christo-fascists can retain power.

I will not be shocked if they totally destroy voting, as we know it, without blinking an eye.

[Hoyt]

5. I'm more optimistic, but can't say you are wrong.

[ymetca]

3. It's quite clear

that the objective is maintaining minority rule by a cabal of racists, whether they think they are or not.

Once you've resorted to "states rights" arguments to curb the vote that's a sure sign your position is untenable, and lacking of majority support in the electorate of your own state.

The Lazarus of Old Jim Crow rises again from its Confederate grave, risen by the hand of White Jesus!

[FoxNewsSucks]

6. If it's up to Aunt Amy,

then we're totally screwed.

[UTUSN]

7. More news like we don't have enough to worry about.

[Wounded Bear]

8. Now that's a scary thought...