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

[Skill and Chance]

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’

State legislatures already have the power to pick the EC, they just have to change the law prior to the presidential election.

If this goes off the deep end, particularly to governors can't veto legislation on federal elections or initiatives and referenda can't change federal election law, this does get pretty ugly.  However, the risk is gerrymandering and being unable to extend (federal) voting rights to felons, etc, not presidential electors.   

[Skill and Chance]

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.

I don't think this is true.

It's not technically true because of EV-by-CD in Maine and Nebraska, but all states make laws on how electors are chosen and 48 states do require that they are chosen by statewide popular vote.  There has been no serious attempt to change this post-2020 even in Republican trifecta swing states.

[Skill and Chance]

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.

I don't think this case has to do with assigning electors.  It's about "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives..." (Article I, Section 4)

The same "legislature thereof" language is used in the clause on appointing electors, so there could be strong implications for a future case on that subject.  

[Skill and Chance]

In the immediate aspect of this case Democrats actually have a lot more to gain since they have so many more large states that vote heavily in their favor.  States like California, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland all would be empowered to draw extreme D gerrymanders without any oversight.  

Republicans are limited because all their large states vote more 50/50 like Georgia, Florida, Texas, and Arizona.   There's only so much gerrymandering they can do when the votes simply aren't all there.

Will Democrats be willing to aggressively gerrymander though? Or will they yet again chicken out in the name of "bipartisanship"?

Oh you had better believe they would do that. They’ll likely be able to maneuver themselves into eternal control of the House in this instance. The GOP is taking a fly swatter to a hornet’s nest with this one.

If (when?) Texas’s legislature flips they will be beyond screwed

But the problem is exactly as you said regarding the if. Basically this insulates state legislatures from gerrymandering prohibitions as well. This effectively means that every single Atlas blue state currently controlled by a republican trifecta, including those so controlled after 2022, will draw maps that effectively make it impossible for Democrats to ever retake control of the legislature. See Wisconsin as a prime example, and Texas isn't much better

They would have to overturn Reynolds v. Sims for Texas to make a Safe R legislative map.  The rural/urban population distribution favors Democrats more dramatically than the federal electoral college favors Republicans and many Texas Republicans are only winning statewide elections by single digits now.

A very underrated outcome here is the Texas legislature giving itself the power to directly choose a winner in disputed elections/recounts and then Dems take over before the next disputed election.

[Skill and Chance]

This would only effect congressional maps if I am correct. Dems could still use state courts to strike down STATE legislative maps. Aka this could happen in PA MI NC WI. Then Dems can win the legislatures from the struck down R state maps and draw their own congressional gerrymanders. The conservatives are eating more than they can chew.

I think this is correct.  State level rules for drawing state legislative districts sufficient to make control of the overall legislature competitive would go a long way toward limiting congressional gerrymandering, if indirectly.

[Skill and Chance]

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.

Republican legislatures are currently arguing that state laws banning abortion passed in 1849, 1901,  1925, and 1931 and never explicitly repealed during the Roe years are valid and came back into force. 

[Skill and Chance]

Allowing legislatures to election draw maps is one thing and would likely help Dems in congress and Republicans get a lock on several key state legislatures as was the case last decade.

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.

It would be ironic though if the House ends up with a Dem bias due to a 52-0 Cali. Fr, it seems a bit risky on Republicans part given the only states they'd get to gerrymander would be NC, AZ, and maybe MI and PA. Dems would get CA, NY, WA, CO, MD, ect, ect.

Yes, this net benefits Democrats on redistricting if it goes through.  If it's limited to state courts, they get to re-gerrymander NY and MD while R's only get to re-gerrymander NC.  If commissions as applied to congressional districts go down, Dems pick up a ton of seats in CA, WA, and probably CO assuming the trifecta holds.

[Skill and Chance]

Btw has anyone actually read the lawsuit ?
A major claim is that the court suspiciously refused to accept the actually partisanly fair remedial map and instead imposed a map that removed all competition.

The case is more narrow then expected fwiw.

People are dooming ridiculously about this.  If SCOTUS wanted to just elect the Republican candidate after the fact or endorse state legislatures doing that, all current members had the opportunity to do so by taking the Texas case in December of 2020.  They rejected it 7/2, and the 2 Justices who dissented quite possibly did so based on longstanding technical beliefs about SCOTUS jurisdiction (that they can't constitutionally decline a case between states with only a one sentence explanation) vs. any indication that they would have ruled in favor of the conservative states.  Regardless, the worst possible interpretation is a 7/2 rejection of Trump's view on the 2020 election results from the most conservative court since WWII.  Find something else to worry about.