CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-ELECTIONS CLAUSE-STATE COURTS INVALIDATING CONGRESSIONAL REDISTRICTING

Moore v. Harper, 2023 U.S. LEXIS 2787 (S. Ct. June 27, 2023) (Roberts, J.) Several groups of plaintiffs challenged North Carolina’s congressional districting map as an impermissible partisan gerrymander. The plaintiffs brought claims under North Carolina’s Constitution, which provides that “[a]ll elections shall be free.” Art. I, §10. Relying on that provision, as well as the State Constitution’s equal protection, free speech, and free assembly clauses, the North Carolina Supreme Court found in favor of the plaintiffs and struck down the legislature’s map. The Court concluded that North Carolina’s Legislature deliberately drew the State’s congressional map to favor Republican candidates. In drawing the State’s congressional map, North Carolina’s Legislature exercised authority under the Elections Clause of the Federal Constitution, which expressly requires “the Legislature” of each State to prescribe “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of ” federal elections. Art. I, §4, cl. 1. We decide today whether that Clause vests state legislatures with authority to set rules governing federal elections free from restrictions imposed under state law. The Elections Clause provides: “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.” Ibid. The Clause “imposes” on state legislatures the “duty” to prescribe rules governing federal elections. Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Ariz., Inc., 570 U. S. 1, 8, 133 S. Ct. 2247, 186 L. Ed. 2d 239 (2013). It also guards “against the possibility that a State would refuse to provide for the election of representatives” by authorizing Congress to prescribe its own rules. Ibid. State cases, debates at the Convention, and writings defending the Constitution all advanced the concept of judicial review. And in the years immediately following ratification, courts grew assured of their power to void laws incompatible with constitutional provisions. See Treanor, 58 Stan. L. Rev., at 473, 497-498. The idea that courts may review legislative action was so “long and well established” by the time we decided Marbury in 1803 that Chief Justice Marshall referred to judicial review as “one of the fundamental principles of our society.” 5 U.S. 137, 1 Cranch, at 176-177, 2 L. Ed. 60. We are asked to decide whether the Elections Clause carves out an exception to this basic principle. We hold that it does not. The Elections Clause does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review. State courts retain the authority to apply state constitutional restraints when legislatures act under the power conferred upon them by the Elections Clause. But federal courts must not abandon their own duty to exercise judicial review. In interpreting state law in this area, state courts may not so exceed the bounds of ordinary judicial review as to unconstitutionally intrude upon the role specifically reserved to state legislatures by Article I, Section 4, of the Federal Constitution. Because we need not decide whether that occurred in today’s case, the judgment of the North Carolina Supreme Court is affirmed.