I should not have laughed as loudly as I did in reading that.
I’m a strong proponent of PR (and uncapping the House).
Fifty Quatloos on the newcomer!
Moderating:
Enough with the hijacks. You all have been here long enough to know when you’re engaging in it. There are plenty of places around the forum to goof around. This thread isn’t one of them.
Thanks
From reading that link and wikis on those cases, it seems like in theory the SCOTUS would allow federal courts to review something that was explicit in constitutional or federal law, but something like partisan gerrymandering isn’t explicitly illegal so they won’t let the federal courts step in on that.
The problem then becomes that those powers have already been significantly neutered, and if the court winds up ruling in favor of ISLT, they’re not going to have any problem calvinball-ing any federal election laws into being unenforceable in any practical sense.
I only learned of this issue from listening to an NPR discussion about it yesterday. Another bloody frightening thing.
If nothing else, I can’t see the SCOTUS signing off on anything that precludes judicial review, at any level. That’s shooting themselves in the foot to spite their face…I think that metaphor go away from me…
Stealing.
I just saw that on scotusblog.
here is the full opinion:
Brian
(breathes huge sigh of relief)
Does this at least eliminate one of the big fears about next year’s election – that a state such as Wisconsin could simply nominate a slate of Republican electors, regardless of its popular vote?
This decision is indeed a huge relief. The “independent state legislature theory” promised to play havoc with our elections, allowing state legislatures to rewrite election law and determine the appointment of Presidential electors completely unbound by a Governor’s veto, state judicial review, or even their own state constitutions. I am pleased that this view was amply rejected, with only Alito, Thomas and Gorsuch opposed.
Huh. That’s odd, that the 2 most corrupt Supreme Court Justices voted against the obvious decision here.
Agreed. I was more worried about this decision than any other on their docket this session. It would have legalized what Trump & Co. attempted with their fake electors scheme.
Nonetheless, I find it quite disturbing that it wasn’t a 9-0 decision. Not a surprise, but disturbing.
My personal opinion is that public pressure and the delegitimization of the Court over the past year brushed them back from doing what they may have planned to do when they originally decided to take up this case.
Unless the blowback from overturning Roe vs Wade unnerved them more I thought, I would think they wouldn’t reverse course like that.
From my quick perusal of the opinion, it seems Thomas’s opinion (joined by Alito and Gorsuch) is based on the case being moot due to a flip by the NC Supreme Court, rather than on the merits of the independent state legislature theory.
However, there’s an article in Slate:
which claims that John Roberts may have horse-traded his vote for a concession from the liberal minority that gives federal courts a lot more leeway in reviewing the decisions of state courts over their election laws.
Hasen says this could set us up for another Bush v. Gore down the line.
I think that’s exactly what happened.
It takes 5 on the Court to agree to take up case, and with their heady sense of newfound power after Roe, I think Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Coney-Barrett were the 5 that voted to take up the Moore v. Harper case with the express intention of making some big changes to the law. Stare decisis? What’s that?
As you no doubt recall, they had settled this matter with another case only a few months earlier. If no change was intended, there was no reason to take it up at all.
Then came the blowback from Roe, along with the revelations of corrupt behavior by Thomas and Alito. Their approval rating has now plummeted to lower than at any other time since the measurement of approval commenced.
I imagine Roberts suggested – strongly – they slow down on their partisan efforts.
I haven’t yet had a chance to read the opinion, but I’ll take your word on your read of it. That’s much worse than my interpretation. 
The Slate article does appear to have a good take on what actually occurred.
Nitpick. Four justices can grant cert.
I’m sorry – and thanks for the correction! Not sure how I got it into my head it was 5, not 4. Thanks again. 