Charlotte Observer: ‘Death knell of democracy’: A dangerous Supreme Court case, with NC at the center

Checks and balances matter.

In North Carolina, we know this, because our lives would look very different without them. Constitutional guardrails like judicial review and the governor’s veto power have spared us the worst of the General Assembly’s attempts to disenfranchise voters and tilt elections unfairly in their favor.

But what if those guardrails were no longer there to protect us? In the coming months, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case put forth by North Carolina Republican lawmakers that weighs that very question.

The case, known as Moore v. Harper, is based on a fringe legal concept known as the independent state legislature theory. It’s a direct appeal of the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision to strike down unconstitutionally gerrymandered maps drawn by the Republican legislature earlier this year.

The GOP, infuriated by the decision, has taken its case to the nation’s highest court — which could now deliver a chaos-inducing, precedent-shattering blow to democracy as we know it.

The crux of the independent state legislature theory is the idea that the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution grants state legislatures exclusive authority over the administration of federal elections. …

“We talk about the Elections Clause, and it gets complicated. But it’s really about, is there continuity in government? Are there checks and balances? Do state constitutions mean something?” Allison Riggs, co-executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and lead counsel in the case, told me.

The theory contradicts more than 200 years of existing Supreme Court precedent. A 5-4 majority of conservative justices ruled just three years ago in Rucho v. Common Cause, another North Carolina case argued by Riggs, that state courts can decide questions of partisan gerrymandering in accordance with state constitutions, even if federal courts can’t. …

“What’s at stake is really our American notion of what it means to have a responsive and participatory democracy,” Kathay Feng, national redistricting director for Common Cause, said. “The question is, how important is that to us? Because this one theory would threaten to dismantle those fundamental principles.”

Common Cause North Carolina and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice have launched a statewide tour — holding town halls in all 100 counties — to build a movement against the case. Riggs, who will argue the case before the Supreme Court this fall, doesn’t want people to feel defeated. She believes the case is winnable.

“What I need folks to do, if they believe in checks and balances and a government that has the ability to be responsive to people, is to keep turning out and voting and just talking about it,” Riggs told me. “The country needs this radical theory to go away.”