Supreme Court rejects North Carolina GOP in map dispute.

The Supreme Court Affirms Decision on Independent State Legislature Theory

The Supreme Court on Tuesday affirmed a decision by North Carolina’s top court but rejected a so-called independent state legislature theory at issue in the case.

A group of Republican lawmakers from North Carolina argued the theory, the notion that the Constitution’s elections clause gave state legislators nearly unfettered authority to regulate federal elections without interference from state courts, barred the state’s high court from setting aside congressional maps by the state’s legislature.

Continued Respect for State Judicial Review

The 6-3 majority decision held that the elections clause “does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review.”

“The reasoning we unanimously embraced in Smiley [v. Holm] commands our continued respect,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “A state legislature may not ‘create congressional districts independently of’ requirements imposed ‘by the state constitution with respect to the enactment of laws.'”

In April, the recently formed conservative majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned a previous ruling that disallowed partisan gerrymandering, allowing Republicans in the state to redraw the state’s congressional lines that heavily favored the GOP.

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That decision threw into question the status of a case at the U.S. Supreme Court and whether that court’s 6-3 Republican-appointed majority will rule on a contentious ISL theory.

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This is a developing article and will be updated.

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