Onion of the Day: AG Nessel for filing a motion today asking for the nine manslaughter charges against former DHHS Director Nick Lyon be remanded to the District Court for preliminary exam. In doing so, AG Nessel is ignoring the Michigan Supreme Court ruling earlier this week that said in a 6-0 vote, the circuit court erred in denying Lyon’s motion to dismiss the charges against him.
The following should scare the hell out of anyone who believes in a democracy that represents all its people, not just the white Christian males. Here are excerpts from a NY Times article today.
The Supreme Court announced on Thursday that it would hear a case that could radically reshape how federal elections are conducted by giving state legislatures independent power, not subject to review by state courts, to set election rules in conflict with state constitutions.
The case concerns a voting map drawn by the North Carolina legislature that was rejected as a partisan gerrymander by the State Supreme Court. Republicans seeking to restore the legislative map argued that the state court was powerless to act under the so-called independent state legislature doctrine.
The doctrine is based on a reading of two similar provisions of the U.S. Constitution. The one at issue in the North Carolina case, the Election Clause, says: “The times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.”
Should the Supreme Court embrace the doctrine, “it would completely eliminate the opportunity to set aside redistricting maps based upon the proposition that they be some kind of a partisan gerrymander,” said David Rivkin, a federal constitutional law expert who served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and has supported the independent state legislature doctrine. It would also leave few remaining avenues through the courts to challenge congressional maps as unconstitutional. Partisan gerrymandering would essentially be legal, and a racial gerrymander would be the only way to lodge a challenge.
Embracing the doctrine could also end up gutting independent redistricting commissions that have been established by voters through a ballot initiative, such as in Michigan and Arizona, and limit their scope to only state legislative districts.
Such a decision, legal experts say, could limit a state court’s ability to strike down any new voting laws regarding federal elections, and could restrict their ability to make changes on Election Day, like extending polling hours at a location that opened late because of bad weather or technical difficulties.
“I just can’t overstate how consequential, how radical and consequential this could be,” said Wendy Weiser, the vice president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice. “Essentially no one other than Congress would be allowed to rein in some of the abuses of state legislatures.”
The decision to hear the case comes as Republican-led state legislatures across the country have sought to wrest more authority over the administration of elections from nonpartisan election officials and secretaries of state. In Georgia, for example, a law passed last year stripped the secretary of state of significant power, including as chair of the State Elections Board.
“The nightmare scenario,” the Brennan Center wrote in June, “is that a legislature, displeased with how an election official on the ground has interpreted her state’s election laws, would invoke the theory as a pretext to refuse to certify the results of a presidential election and instead select its own slate of electors.” “If this theory is embraced, then red state legislatures are going to be smart, and they’re going to start to put into place these things before 2024,” said Vikram D. Amar, the dean of the University of Illinois College of Law. “So the rules are in place for them to do what they want.”
Here is what Heather Cox Richardson had to say about SCOTUS agreeing to hear arguments on the doctrine.
That doctrine would also give to state legislatures the power to control who can vote, and how and where they can do so. It would strip power from elections commissions and secretaries of state, and it would take from state courts the power to challenge gerrymandering or voter suppression. Republicans currently control 30 state legislatures, in large part thanks to the gerrymandering and voter suppression in place in a number of those states.
Revered conservative judge J. Michael Luttig has been trying for months to sound the alarm that this doctrine is a blueprint for Republicans to steal the 2024 election. In April, before the court agreed to take on the Moore v. Harper case, he wrote: “Trump and the Republicans can only be stopped from stealing the 2024 election at this point if the Supreme Court rejects the independent state legislature doctrine (thus allowing state court enforcement of state constitutional limitations on legislatively enacted election rules and elector appointments) and Congress amends the Electoral Count Act to constrain Congress’ own power to reject state electoral votes and decide the presidency.”
Here are my thoughts.
If the Supreme Court endorses the independent state legislature doctrine, then only state legislatures can make rules associated with the state’s rules for presidential and national elections. With Republicans dominating 30 state legislatures, they can make voting rules and draw maps that only favor them. They will have the ability to establish restrictions on mail-in voting, voting hours, election commissions, etc. These rules will give Republicans an advantage in presidential and congressional elections. This becomes especially important in Senate races, where a Republican majority means they control confirmation of Supreme Court nominations. If SCOTUS continues to be packed with conservative originalists look out. The originalists want to take our county back to their interpretation of the thinking of the founding fathers, which as we all know only allowed white male property owners to vote. For my kids’ and my grandchildren’s sake, I hope it doesn’t get that bad.
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Elections Matter. Pray for peace and tolerance. What are you doing to stop the violence?
Orchids of the Day: The weather in Petoskey today. 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky with very little wind.
Quote of the Day: “He is Trump shit crazy” One bat talking about another bat.
Question of the Day: Is the price of gas going to restrict your travel this long Fourth of July week end?
Video of the Day: Abbot and Costello’s Who is on First: