The Coming Supreme Storm

I have to admit, 2022 was the worst Supreme Court term of my lifetime, a historic destruction of rights in order to serve white supremacy and to put the nation's non-white folk at a lethal disadvantage in the years ahead.

And I am telling you now, 2023 may be worse.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear a North Carolina case with nationwide implications — on whether state legislatures should be immune from judicial oversight in state court when it comes to setting election rules. 

The arguments put forth by North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature concerned a controversial topic known as the “independent state legislature doctrine.” While the matter before the Supreme Court stems from a gerrymandering lawsuit in North Carolina, critics said the argument could be used in any state, for a variety of purposes — like overturning the results of future presidential elections. 

“This case is not only critical to election integrity in North Carolina, but has implications for the security of elections nationwide,” N.C. House Speaker Tim Moore said in a news release. He’s a main party in the case, called Moore v. Harper, which will likely be argued in late 2022 or early 2023. 

The basic premise is that there should be few checks and balances when it comes to election law. State legislatures should have near-total control over the rules, the theory says, without state courts being allowed to decide if a state’s elections laws are constitutional. 

The N.C. Supreme Court harshly shot down the argument earlier this year, in its ruling in the gerrymandering case. “It is also repugnant to the sovereignty of states, the authority of state constitutions, and the independence of state courts, and would produce absurd and dangerous consequences,” the state’s highest court wrote. 

The N.C Supreme Court has a Democratic majority. But the U.S. Supreme Court has a conservative majority which could see things differently, GOP leaders in North Carolina hoped — even though previous versions of the U.S. Supreme Court have also shot down the argument over the decades, and as recently as 2015. 

Republican lawmakers told the U.S. Supreme Court that they believe the Constitution intends for legislative leaders, not the courts, to have the final say over elections law — “and this Court should intervene to protect the Constitution’s allocation of power over this matter of fundamental importance to our democratic system of government.”

 

Understand that if there are five SCOTUS votes for this -- and there are already four -- we are looking at permanent control of the country by Republicans. State legislatures will simply declare Republicans winners with no recourse. Democratic wins will be simply annulled by a simple majority of Republicans in Republican-controlled legislatures.

The election laws in a couple dozen states will mean whatever the Republicans want it to mean. And in 2024, Republicans will simply give the state's electoral votes to the Republican. Vote totals won't matter. As bad as things are right now, if the Roberts Court decides that only state legislatures can ever run elections, then no Democrats will ever be elected from those states again.

At that point, history tells us massive violence follows.

This one's the end of democracy, folks.

Voting now may be the only way to stop it.