SCOTUS to review "independent state legisilature" theory regarding federal elections next term

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

This would actually benefit Democrats in some states (New York is the after all the largest state where the state high court invalidated redistricting) so I suspect they'll find some excuse to reject it especially as North Carolina probably doesn't need it if the Republicans control the State Supreme Court next year. Still...yikes.

This is a set up to ‘lol State Legislatures can pick the EC’ so the GOP will never have to lose another presidential election and overturning Reynolds v Sims to allow Republicans to map a permanent legislative majority.

We need to do something about the court. They pretty clearly believe that Democrats will never ever do anything about them whine and tell you to vote harder.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

There's really nothing preventing state legislatures from assigning electors now, just that all 50 states have laws requiring them to go to the winner of the popular vote in that state and it's such a radical position to repeal it that even the Republican Legislatures and Governors aren't willing to. Someone like Mastriano would be willing to buy still unclear if he could get such a bill passed.

Repealing it after the election would probably be struck down by even the most conservative court as an ex post facto law and we saw how interested courts were in Trump's post-election attempts. Still any case that would potentially push gerrymandering even further is quite worrisome.

Why couldn't they just pass a law today saying "the state's presidential electors will be determined via popular vote; however, a majority of the legislature, within three weeks of the election, may override this and determine the presidential electors" if they passed it before the election?

There's nothing in the Constitution that says they couldn't do that.

You guys are still operating under the notion that the court has principles.

A legislature can’t be bound by a past legislature and therefore they can what we want will be the ruling from all 6.
And you idiots will still be sitting here arguing that if just the texts or the argument was different.

The Supreme Court has been captured and isn’t practicing anything resembling law anymore.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

However, would the court really want to delegitimize American democracy to the point where people's votes literally don't matter and the legislature can elect whoever they want? I think that is extremely unlikely.

Why?

At what point in there entire professional lives has Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett not been working towards that goal?

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

However, would the court really want to delegitimize American democracy to the point where people's votes literally don't matter and the legislature can elect whoever they want? I think that is extremely unlikely.

Why?

At what point in there entire professional lives has Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett not been working towards that goal?

No, they've followed quite a conservative and literal view of the US constitution though. I'd argue only Alito and Thomas are truly nut jobs while the other 4 are just justices with one way of looking at the constitution.

No matter your judicial doctrine, no justice inside the remotely normal box would vote to end American Democracy.

What gives you this impression?

If you actually follow their decisions and not their pr machine this court has decided that has invented novel doctrines (as of today non-delegation on major questions, sovereign dignity of states, etc.), laws from 1925 overrule laws from 1935, wether we have democratic elections is a political question

These people aren’t following any rational legal theory.

And we need to understand that and push back on anyone trying to sell ‘orginalism’. It’s not and never has been about a literal reading of the constitution. The vast majority of it relies on either novel or long dead doctrines not ever contemplated by the framers.
What it is is a political doctrine, and they are relying on people just taking them at their word that what they are doing is high minded legal reasoning too complex for us regular people. Please don’t fall for it.

Quothe Elena Kagan in today’s descent:


Even their colleagues, with a vested interest in the integrity of the court kayfabe, aren’t pretending to believe this anymore.