Even if Democrats hold the line on Nov. 8
One date to watch will be the day the Supreme Court rules on Moore v. Harper next year. It could be a day that lives in infamy. The justices will hear oral arguments in the case on a date that actually does live in infamy, Joan McCarter reminds us (Daily Kos):
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Moore v. Harper on December 7. That’s North Carolina case that could upend democracy in any state with a Republican legislature, the one where Republican state legislators are arguing that the Constitution says they’re the bosses when it comes to federal elections, including drawing congressional redistricting maps. As the Court prepares to hear that one, Ohio Republican legislators are piling on, asking the Supreme Court to toss a bipartisan ruling from that state’s Supreme Court that declared a gerrymandered Republican map unconstitutional.
“The United States Constitution expressly puts the responsibility to prescribe ‘The Times, Places, and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives…’ with the legislature of each state,” the Ohio Republicans said in their press release announcing the Supreme Court appeal. “As our petition lays out, the 4-3 decision of the Ohio Supreme Court encroached on this legislative authority in multiple ways, and that action deserves to be tested in the U.S. Supreme Court. Our appeal today sets that process in motion.”
That’s the theory of independent state legislatures the Court is taking up in December. It’s is based on an interpretation in the Constitution’s Elections Clause, as quoted by the legislators. These extremist Republicans interpret that to mean that state legislatures have supremacy in crafting the rules governing federal elections. Supremacy over state courts, over federal courts, over Congress, over governors, over citizen-initiated constitutional amendments.
Checks and balances? Bah! Like democracy, where do those words appear in the Constitution? Huh?
Ohio Republicans want to get in on North Carolina’s norms-wrecking act. We shall have more anon. It’s going to be a long war.
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