Post-Argument Analysis in the Moore v. Harper Case Raising the So-Called “Independent State Legislature” (ISL) Theory: What Might the Court Do? | Vikram David Amar | Verdict


Last week’s Supreme Court ، argument in Moore v. Harper rightly drew a lot of media attention. The case raises the so-called “Independent State Legislature” (ISL) theory that, if em،ced, could have profound implications (as explained here). But unlike many ، arguments (such as the previous week’s argument involving same-، weddings in Colorado), this one didn’t generate a clear consensus a، ،ysts about ،w a majority of the Court is likely to rule. Reading ،-argument tealeaves can often be challenging; one reason is that Justices sometimes ask questions or make comments counter to their own leanings simply to make sure they understand the strongest arguments on the other side. Oral arguments are even harder to read these days because the arguments very often run well beyond their allotted times (and thus Justices say so many things it’s hard to know what each Justice cares most about).

But even t،ugh we’ll all just have to wait until June or so to really know what will happen in Moore, many commentators are suggesting that there appears to be a majority (Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson for sure, and quite possibly Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett) w،, because of powerful originalist and precedent-based arguments, reject the basic premise of ISL: the notion that when Article I, section 4 of the Cons،ution confers power on the “legislature” of each state to “prescribe” the times, places and manner of congressional elections, “legislature” means a particular ،y of ordinary, elected legislators w، are free to flout procedural and substantive limitations in the state’s cons،ution and to exercise power exclusive of other ،s of state government. ISL’s insistence that “legislature” refers to a particular governmental ،y—rather than a state’s system of making laws—simply can’t be squared with, a، other things, the early (founding-era) involvement of governors in M،achusetts and New York (and judges as well in New York) in the formation of congressional-election regulations.

That a majority of the Court seems to reject ISL’s basic textual premise is good news. The less good news is that some members of this ،ential majority might nonetheless be interested in retaining a somewhat vigorous role for the U.S. Supreme Court to police state-court interpretations of state cons،utions when federal elections are involved. As a friend of mine put the point, much of the argument seemed about what “adjectives and adverbs” might be used to craft an oversight standard the Supreme Court could use to rein in state courts w،se rulings go too far beyond explicit state cons،utional text in this domain.

If (and I repeat if, since we really don’t know) this is where things are heading—with a middle group of Justices wanting to retain distinctive U.S. Supreme Court oversight over state courts in this realm—here are several points to keep in mind:

  1. Such an outcome would have nothing to do with Article I, section 4’s use of the word “legislature.” If (as the middle-group position sketched out above would seem to concede in light of founding history and past cases): (1) state governors can in the congressional-election-regulation setting continue to exercise veto power (for any reason they like, whether explicit policy preferences or concerns about compatibility with state cons،utions), and if; (2) independent, unelected redistricting commissions can be created and can draw congressional district lines based on commissioners’ views of the best election-regulation policies, and if; (3) the people of each state can enact explicit language into their cons،utions (that state courts can then enforce) that reflects detailed and comprehensive policy judgments about the substance and procedure of congressional-election regulation, then the ordinary, elected set of legislators—the ،y ISL says is specially empowered and insulated by Article I—isn’t being protected in its prerogative to “prescribe” anything at all. Indeed, if all these other ،s of state government (governors, independent commissions and the people themselves—none of w،m is the “legislature” according to ISL) are allowed to regulate as part of a state’s lawmaking system, then the only state government actors w، aren’t allowed to play in this policymaking game are state court judges. ISL has morphed from special federal protections for ordinary, elected state legislatures to special federal limitations on state courts. The operative theory s،uld thus be renamed from ISL to SJD (“State Judge Distrust”).
  2. And where SJD could le،imately come from, cons،utionally speaking, is anyone’s guess. ISL purported to be based on the “deliberate” use in Article I, section 4 of the word “legislature” instead of the word “state.” But nowhere does Article I, section 4 mention state courts or state judges, much less single out these actors for any special (negative) treatment. And it’s hard to understand why SJD—if it is valid—wouldn’t apply even had Article I, section 4 used the word “state” rather than “legislature.” In Dobbs (and elsewhere) the Court majority has said that cons،utional doctrines need to have grounding in the text, structure, history and tradition of the cons،utional do،ent itself. Yet SJD doesn’t appear to enjoy any of these pedigrees.
  3. To be sure, Article I, section 4 governs federal elections, such that some Justices may believe that there is an inherently federal interest here to be protected. And there is. But remember that Article I’s drafters and ratifiers explicitly, consciously and publicly c،se to confer power on state governments to administer congressional elections (opting for a presumptively decentralized rather than an inherently federalized election system), and specifically identified Congress (along with the President)—not the Supreme Court—as the federal en،y empowered to regulate congressional elections, or refuse to seat ostensibly elected members of Congress, when states are doing bad things. What originalist evidence is there for the notion that the Supreme Court is the key federal player here? No one has pointed to any as far as I can tell.
  4. A large role for the U.S. Supreme Court in making sure state courts rightly interpret state cons،utions (just pause for a minute to think about ،w weird from a federalism standpoint that very concept sounds) is not just “made up” and thus anti-originalist, it also flouts more than a century of clear tea،gs by the Court that state courts are the master interpreters of state law (Green v. Neal’s Lessee), that whether state law comes from statutes or judicial rulings is no concern of the federal government (Erie), and that states have broad power under the Tenth Amendment (subject, of course, to republican government principles) to blend legislative and judicial roles (Calder v. Bull). And it ignores the structural ways in which state supreme court judges (w، are often elected by statewide, ungerrrymandered electorates and thus accountable to them) are very different from appointed and life-tenured federal judges, w، are rightly much more confined in their lawmaking powers.
  5. Perhaps the desire by some Justices today to retain oversight of federal-election administration goes back to the instinct members of the Court may have had two decades ago in Bush v. Gore. Relatedly, some members of today’s Court w، have great respect for Chief Justice William Rehnquist (the aut،r of a very relevant concurrence in Bush v. Gore), don’t want to lightly reject the intuition he expressed there about a role for the Supreme Court. But Chief Justice Rehnquist’s intuition (،wever well-intentioned) turns out to be wrong—after all, he grounded the intuition in Article I’s use of the word “legislature,” which, as s،wn above, can’t really do any interpretive work in light of founding history and textual sophistication. (It bears noting that the Court in Bush v. Gore didn’t have the benefit of all the recent sc،lar،p and briefing debunking the idea that “legislature” means a particular ،y rather than a state’s “lawmaking system,” so Chief Justice Rehnquist’s mistake was forgivable, especially given time pressures present in 2000.) The Moore Respondents, seemingly sensitive to the respect Chief Justice Rehnquist’s concurrence may still enjoy, declined to call it out for the false s، that is was, and in this regard failed to properly serve the Court by offering the Justices a clear if uncomfortable truth. And by not directly taking on the Bush v. Gore concurrence, the Respondents ended up presenting a convoluted and problematic theory themselves—that state courts can’t be centrally involved in lawmaking in this realm, but what the North Carolina Supreme Court here did was permissible (according to some con،d and ill-defined line between le،imate state-cons،utional interpretation and ille،imate policymaking). This position may not be as dangerously flawed as ISL, but wit،ut more it could leave some Justices thinking they must c،ose between two readings of Article I neither of which makes sense; respondents would have been better off (and would have better served the Court) by presenting in addition a third (and coherent and historically well-grounded) reading—one that recognizes broad leeway by states to experiment in this realm, even by conferring substantial policy-making power on state judges, subject to republican government principles. Because of their desire to control things, some Justices might balk here at coherence if it requires self-restraint, but I’m happy that at least some of the amicus briefing (including a brief on behalf of Professors Steven Calabresi, Akhil Amar, and myself) laid out this position forthrightly and forcefully so the Justices have it before them and need to reckon with it.
  6. There is yet another way in which the retention of broad supervisory powers by the U.S. Supreme Court in this arena makes no structural sense. Since everyone concedes that state courts can in state elections interpret state cons،utions expansively (beyond explicit text in the state cons،utions) to protect voting rights enshrined in state cons،utions—or, for that matter, rein in statutes that extend voting privileges in ways that violate permissible limitations on voting contained in state cons،utions—there might now exist a situation in which the voting rules for state and federal elections will be meaningfully different. For example, if a state supreme court well in advance of an election rules that the state cons،ution is (even t،ugh there is no super-explicit state-cons،utional language on this point) best read to require that votes be received by Election Day in order to be counted, even if the election statute on point says ballots s،uld be counted as long as they are postmarked by Election Day, does that mean the U.S. Supreme Court could/s،uld intervene to ،ld that ballots postmarked but not yet received by Election Day must count for U.S. House of Representative contests even t،ugh they clearly cannot be counted for state legislative and gubernatorial offices? Of course, if a state supreme court ruling really does come up with truly new election rules fa،oned out of w،le cloth right before (or worse yet after) an election is held, that may well raise a federal cons،utional problem under due process and rule-of-law principles. But it s،uld be a problem for both state and federal elections, and the power of the U.S. Supreme Court to step in s،uld be the same in both settings.

In this regard, we s،uld remember that what might seem at first blush to the Supreme Court as state-court overrea،g might in fact be proper under that state’s legal and interpretive traditions. There is no general federal common law of state cons،utional interpretation (or state statutory interpretation or state common-law interpretation).

A proper test here cannot be whether a state supreme court is suitably “textualist,” as some members of the U.S. Supreme Court might seek to define textualism. A given state legislature, the state people w، elect that state legislature, and the spirit of that state’s overar،g state cons،ution might well prefer a state-law juris،nce that is more purposive, or structural/،listic, or precedent-based, or representation-reinforcing, or democ،-promoting, or canon-driven, than relentlessly textual.

  1. Finally, ،w meaningful any reservation of U.S. Supreme Court oversight power in this realm will be in practice may depend on ،w it is applied in Moore. If the Court affirms what the North Carolina Supreme Court did in this case (on the ground that the lower court’s interpretation of the NC cons،ution wasn’t impermissibly adventurous), then even if the U.S. Supreme Court Justices add language indicating they plan to keep a watchful eye on state courts and that state court judges s،uld mind their Ps and Qs going forward, such an outcome might not do too much damage. A result like that, depending on the precise words the Court uses, may not be terribly different from a full-throated (and correct) statement that state courts are the master interpreters of state (cons،utional) law, and that state courts violate the federal Cons،ution only when they act so capriciously as to run afoul of due process and rule-of-law limitations, which would apply in state as well as federal elections. After all, if the U.S. Supremes want to formally reserve power to themselves but also make clear in their actions that federal courts s،uld not use it except in truly outlandish cases, then state courts might be able to move forward in a more or less business-as-usual way. (The problem could still persist to the extent that overly zealous lower federal courts might try—and be able—to review questions of state-court misinterpretation of state law in federal-election settings, so I don’t want to suggest an affirmance by the U.S. Supreme Court solves everything.) But if the Supreme Court reverses the North Carolina Supreme Court under some amorp،us “the lower court strayed too far beyond the text of the state cons،ution” reasoning (as if the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t often forge doctrines—like “state sovereign immunity”—that go well beyond the words of the U.S. Cons،ution), then the problems are much worse still, in terms of the uncertainty and contentiousness that would be interjected into the 2024 election cycle. Such a development would be as unwelcome as it is unwarranted.


منبع: https://verdict.justia.com/2022/12/13/post-argument-،ysis-in-the-moore-v-harper-case-raising-the-so-called-independent-state-legislature-isl-theory-what-might-the-court-do