Here's the abomination of a map:
Posted on 06/30/2022 2:59:03 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Moore v. Harper focuses on a new North Carolina voting map created by court-appointed experts after earlier maps proposed by the Republican-led state legislature were struck down.
The North Carolina Supreme Court in February ruled that the maps offered by the state general assembly were partisan gerrymanders, violating free speech, free assembly and equal protection provisions of the state constitution.
But the state legislature appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has agreed to take up the issue of redistricting and possibly restore the Republican-drawn map.
Central to the petitioners' argument is the so-called "independent state legislature" theory -- a fringe legal concept pushed by a small group of conservative advocates that would give state legislatures broad authority to run federal elections without the traditional oversight from a state constitution or judiciary, whom these advocates argue have no right to intrude on elected representatives.
Observers say there could be major ramifications from the Supreme Court's eventual decision.
"This has the potential to change the rules of the game in far-reaching ways in time for the next presidential election," ABC News Political Director Rick Klein said. "Depending on how far the Supreme Court goes, it could virtually invite Republican-controlled legislatures to rewrite centuries-old laws ensuring that the candidate who gets the most votes in a state gets its electoral votes -- and it even could free legislatures to pick electors on their own."
"It could wind up making it far easier for a future state legislature to actually do what Trump allies so desperately wanted done in the messy aftermath of the 2020 election," Klein added.
The "independent state legislature" theory argues that under the U.S. Constitution's Elections Clause and Electors Clause, state legislators can determine how elections are conducted...
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Well, it’s possible.
I don’t think there is anything preventing a state to award all EVs to the winner, nor dividing them up based on vote percentage.... Federalism at work. Nationalism isn’t what the constitution demands in all issues, actually, only a few enumerated powers.
No doubt, those fringe legal concepts can be easily found in the Constitution of the United States. The elite establishment wants to destroy such fringe ideas.
I stopped reading at this point. “Central to the petitioners’ argument is the so-called “independent state legislature” theory — a fringe legal concept pushed by a small group of conservative advocates that would give state legislatures broad authority to run federal elections without the traditional oversight from a state constitution or judiciary, whom these advocates argue have no right to intrude on elected representatives.”
There’s nothing “fringe” about the US Constitution.
The Democrats would be careful for what they ask. Illinois implemented an extreme gerrymander for the 2022 elections.
“There’s nothing “fringe” about the US Constitution.”
Totally Agree
It is fringe to allow the state judiciary to overrule the state legislature.
Its not a theory. Read the Elections Clause of the US Constitution. There is zero room for doubt. The legislature makes all election laws. There is no room for the judicial branch - they are trying to butt into an area the Constitution clearly reserves for the Legislature.
Oh and any orders by governors concerning elections laws? Unconstitutional. Any agreements entered into by secretaries of state? Unconstitutional.
“independent state legislature” theory — a fringe legal concept pushed by a small group of conservative advocates that would give state legislatures broad authority to run federal elections without the traditional oversight from a state constitution or judiciary, whom these advocates argue have no right to intrude on elected representatives.”
A ‘fringe legal concept’ that is explicitly stated in the U.S. Constitution, which says that state legislatures make the rules. No mention of courts running elections in the Constitution.
“The elite establishment wants to destroy such fringe ideas.”
I call them the meristocracy.
Behold the exoneration of Donald Trump. Apparently his “plot” was to invoke a section of the Constitution, could someone please inform Ms. Cheney?
The Elections Clause reads, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [choosing] Senators.”
The Electors Clause states that “each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.”
The Electors Clause was central to the unsuccessful plot by former President Donald Trump and his allies to use “fake electors” to overturn his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden.
Why can’t they hear it NOW????? Have an emergency summer session!
Typical:
If it’s unConstitutional and favors the Left it’s okay.
If it’s Constitutional and favors the right, it’s a coup.
The party in power gets some perks, and setting up the
districts is how it has always been done.
The Democrats are upset because they don’t run every
district in the nation. They’re tying to fix that.
This judge must be all of 21.
Would this concept extend to only the legislature having the right to set congressional district boundaries without oversight by the judiciary or state constitution?
New Mexico is in the midst of this type of conflict. The far-left Democratic legislature this past winter redistricted the state's three congressional districts so the all three are now Democratic majority. Rural, less populated conservative areas are now lumped with the large very liberal Albuquerque metro area. NM-2 (historically a rural farming/ranching area along the southern state border but now with a large population supporting oil and natural gas production) has been cut so that the northern part of Lea County in SE NM (the #1 oil producing county in the US) has been joined both with Santa Fe and its radical enviro-nazi progressives and the Navajo Indian reservation adjoining Colorado and the northeast Arizona border.
Under the concept presented above, we would have no recourse to the draconian map drawn by a radical majority.
Most states are winner take all.
“it could virtually invite Republican-controlled legislatures to rewrite centuries-old laws ensuring that the candidate who gets the most votes in a state gets its electoral votes”
What the article is saying is that state legislatures could end the winner takes all electors and move to split electors by vote proportion like Nebraska and Maine do.
This would make it significantly harder for Dems to cheat to win since they currently cheat in deep blue cities to outvote the red rural and suburban areas.
CAROLINA JOURNAL...John Locke Society
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed without comment Thursday to take up a dispute involving N.C. election maps. Justices will consider the case Moore v. Harper after the court returns from a summer break.
Justices will decide “Whether a State’s judicial branch may nullify the regulations governing the ‘Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives … prescribed … by the Legislature thereof,’ and replace them with regulations of the state courts’ own devising, based on vague state constitutional provisions purportedly vesting the state judiciary with power to prescribe whatever rules it deems appropriate to ensure a ‘fair’ or ‘free’ election,” according to the petition N.C. legislative leaders submitted to the nation’s highest court.
State legislative leaders had filed a petition March 17 asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case. That paperwork arrived 10 days after the court had voted, 6-3, to reject an emergency petition. An emergency petition could have blocked the current election map from being used for 2022 U.S. House contests.
On March 7, Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated that he agreed with dissenting Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas that the court should address the issue of state courts’ role in addressing state legislatures’ decisions about redistricting.
It takes “yes” votes from four of the nine justices for the U.S. Supreme Court to agree to hear a case.
“The Constitution directs that the manner of federal elections shall ‘be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof,’” according to legislative leaders’ original petition. “’The Constitution provides that state legislatures’ — not ‘state judges’ — ‘bear primary responsibility for setting election rules,’ including the rules establishing the shape of congressional districts.”
State legislative leaders criticized the N.C. Supreme Court’s actions in the redistricting dispute. “Yet in the decision below, the North Carolina Supreme Court decreed that the 2022 election and all upcoming congressional elections in North Carolina were not to be held in the ‘Manner’ ‘prescribed … by the Legislature thereof,’ but rather in the manner prescribed by the state’s judicial branch.”
The state Supreme Court issued a Feb. 4 ruling tossing out state lawmakers’ map for congressional elections. “And after Petitioners — North Carolina legislators, including the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate — engaged in a good-faith effort to craft a congressional map that would be valid under the state supreme court’s order, the state trial court rejected that map, too.”
“Instead, the trial court mandated the use of a new map in the 2022 election that had been created by a group of Special Masters and their team of assistants — who, to make matters worse, designed their own, judicially-crafted map after engaging in ex parte communications with experts for the plaintiffs. The North Carolina Supreme Court refused to stay this decision, thereby authorizing this judge-made map to govern the 2022 election cycle.”
“If a redistricting process more starkly contrary to the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause exists, it is hard to imagine it,” the legislative leaders’ brief concluded.
Opposing briefs filed May 20 by the legislature’s critics had asked the Supreme Court not to take the case.
“Petitioners now ask this Court to exercise its [discretionary] certiorari review to invalidate the map the trial court adopted for the 2022 elections on the ground that state courts are forbidden from protecting individuals’ state constitutional rights by reviewing state laws that touch on federal elections, including the enactment of congressional districts,” according to a brief from Common Cause. That left-of-center activist group has challenged election maps drawn by the Republican-led General Assembly for the past decade.
“The way they see it, because the Constitution refers to ‘the Legislature’ of a State setting the time, place, and manner of congressional elections, it precludes state courts from reviewing whether such election-related legislation complies with the State’s own constitution,” the Common Cause brief continued. “Instead, Petitioners would have this Court say that a state legislature has carte blanche in this context — unrestrained by state constitutional limitations and unable to incorporate state courts into the process, even if it passes a statute attempting to do so.”
“As a matter of text, structure, history, precedent, and long-established practice in this country, that is flatly wrong.”
House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, responded Thursday to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision.
“This case is not only critical to election integrity in North Carolina, but has implications for the security of elections nationwide,” Moore said in a prepared statement. “On the heels of another victory at the U.S. Supreme Court, I am confident that this court recognizes what our State Supreme Court failed to recognize — that the United States Constitution explicitly gives the General Assembly authority to draw districts and that authority must be recognized.”
No date has been set for oral arguments in the case. It could be among the first cases heard by the court’s newest member, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. She was sworn into office Thursday, replacing the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.
Editor’s note: This article was updated at 1 p.m. to include reaction from legislative leaders.
State legislatures can already do that - as shown by Maine and Nebraska. The legislatures could also choose to give their electors based on a vote of legislature and ignore the popular vote entirely - nothing in the Constitution requires them to do so. The plan by states to give their electors to the winner of the national popular vote is not unconstitutional either - but the plan to work in concert with other states to do so is unconstitutional. States cannot form that kind of compact or agreement without the approval of Congress.
First, unlike our constitutionally enumerated power to vote for federal representatives and senators, the states have never amended the Constitution to give ordinary citizen voters the power to vote for president.
In other words, our politically correct power to vote for presidential candidates is a state power issue.
The problem with our constitutionally unprotected power to vote for president is that it possibly gave renegade Democratic states an excuse for the vote-counting "flexibility" that they needed to allegedly steal the 2020 elections.
Regarding the MSN article, unsurprisingly no reference (correction welcome) to the "long forgotten" 12th Amendment (12A) which is electoral vote procedures.
The bottom line is that the corrupt, constitutionally undefined political parties have been blatantly ignoring 12A electoral vote procedures for a long time, so-called state winner take all laws unconstitutional imo.
Let's see where Moore v. Harper goes.
Article I, Section 4, Clause 1:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
Note - the LEGISLATURE
Not the judges, or executives or some other “independent” body.
Not emergency powers because of a pandemic
Here's the abomination of a map:
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