Hurrah.
In another monumental win for voting rights, the Supreme Court today rejected a Republican effort, which had been backed by the Federalist Society's Leonard Leo, that aimed to give state legislatures unrestrained authority to draw new redistricting maps and pass extreme voting restrictions without review. As my colleague Ari Berman wrote, had the court ruled in favor of the "independent state legislature" theory, states would have essentially been greenlighted to hijack elections however they saw fit, while destroying the country's system of checks and balances:
The case had huge national implications. Voting rights experts said the Republican position would eviscerate checks and balances in state government, giving state legislatures enormous power to rig state and national politics, and could have even emboldened them to attempt to overturn future election results, like Trump wanted them to do in 2020 but now with the veneer of legality.
The decision could have immediate ramifications in key battleground states like Wisconsin, where a new liberal majority on the state Supreme Court could strike down the state’s gerrymandered congressional map under the Wisconsin Constitution once a new justice is seated in August.
The ruling follows an equally unexpected victory for voting rights earlier this month after the Supreme Court upheld the last remaining pieces of the Voting Rights Act. Curiously, John Roberts authored both decisions. Of course, none of this should be interpreted as an indication of an abrupt ideological shift on the high court; we still have the fates of affirmative action and student debt forgiveness left in this term—and things don't look great.
Now, if only the court would apply the same need for checks and balances on its own justices.
—Inae Oh
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