Dhe Supreme Court of the United States has rejected a theory on voting rights that was also promoted by supporters of former American President Donald Trump. According to this interpretation of the Constitution, state legislatures can decide voting rights without judicial review.
The Supreme Court rejected this interpretation on Tuesday. The Constitution makes no exception to the fundamental principle that courts may review legislatures on electoral matters, as stated in the court’s reasoning for its decision.
Decision against project in North Carolina
The lawsuit before the Supreme Court came from the American state of North Carolina. There, the Democrats had successfully gone to court against the reorganization of the electoral districts initiated by Republicans. The Republicans then turned to the Supreme Court and argued with the “Independent State Legislature Theory”.
The theory, pushed for years by some activists, says that only state legislatures have the authority to decide their electoral laws or constituency layouts. With this interpretation, Trump supporters tried to overturn the election result of the 2020 presidential election.
“The election clause does not protect state legislatures from normal state judicial review,” Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. It came about with a majority of six of the nine mostly conservative judges on the Supreme Court.
According to experts, had the judges declared the theory constitutional, this would have had far-reaching consequences for the next presidential election in 2024. For example, the ruling party’s political practice of altering constituency boundaries for its own benefit (gerrymandering) could have been taken to the extreme without regard to constitutional restrictions and judicial oversight.
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