Supreme Court
stands in the
breach and John
Roberts says no to the far right.
The chief justice is behind
a very important ruling that rejects
an out there legal theory that would have
could have let states count
your votes,
actually not count your votes at all,
I should say.
CNN's John Priscu
joins me at the table
and David Chalian is still with us.
This just happened this morning.
John, explain.
There's so many different
fascinating nuances to this.
But as you
give your answer
I want to put up on the screen
what the the
the outcome was six to three.
Exactly right.
First of all,
this was the case
that could have been moot.
And John
Roberts said
when he announced it from the bench
that there was a strong argument
for remoteness
and they decided
they were still going to handle it.
But he said
that part of my opinion doesn't
lend itself to oral presentation.
So I will skip it to Ghana
because mean, let's just and I.
Let's get to what the. It is exactly.
Because I didn't because he brushed away,
you know,
lower court developments
in North Carolina
and decided to take on this
very important question of whether state
legislatures have complete
an independent and control
over setting
election rules,
drawing redistricting maps
without a check by their state
Supreme Court
just looking to their state
Supreme Court.
State constitution protections,
for example, for equality.
And that was at issue
here was an extreme partizan gerrymander
in North Carolina
that the state Supreme Court had rejected
for equal protection,
voting rights reasons.
And the Republican dominated North
Carolina legislature
had come to the Supreme Court
saying you should rule
that state legislatures
are essentially insulated
from this kind of check by state courts
because of the Constitution's
elections clause,
which says
that state
legislatures are responsible
for the time, manner
and place of elections.
Chief Justice John Roberts.
63 vote once they got to the merits.
I think this was understandable
because North Carolina
was pushing such a hard argument, said
judicial review
is such a part of our Constitution,
our country
our Constitution
for both
state courts and federal court judges,
and we are not going to eliminate it now.
So.
So to boil it down, the
what they were listening
to was an argument
that the legislatures in in all 50 states
can take the votes
and change them and overturn them.
The vote that comes out out of the state.
And the fact that the court
they had the option to just reject it
and not
and not rule on it
the fact that they made the decision
to rule on it
and did it did
so with the six to three majority
meant that they wanted
to, as we said, drive
a stake through this idea. Right.
And also I think with 2024 looming,
they probably thought do it now because
because there are
there were challenges
coming down the road that were similar.
Do it now.
Do it
outside of a presidential election year
and get it done with.
And it was very decisive.
Much better for democracy
to not do that
in the heat of the election
or retroactively,
but to do it ahead of time.
This is good for democracy.
I mean this is good
because because of the 63
nature of the ruling as well
and that it is
from different
political corners
that you see people coming together.
But Della think about what you're saying.
I think about the argument
that Donald Trump
was having with Mike Pence
when he was asked again
to send it back to the states.
Well, if this somehow ruled differently
and this
this theory
that that legislatures,
state legislatures
had total autonomy over this,
Mike Pence
may have come to a different conclusion.
And then
these different slate of electors
not representative
of how those states voted, maybe,
but then it just unravels from there.
This ruling
now continues to keep some guardrails
in place
for the democracy that are incredibly,
incredibly important.
In a six to three decision,
the justices rejected a case
out of North Carolina
that argued
state courts
have no oversight in reviewing election
rules, rules, we should note,
that would be decided
by potentially
partizan state legislatures.
The theory, you might recall,
was bolstered by backers
of the former president
following the 2020 presidential election.
CNN's
Jessica Schneider
was at the Supreme Court earlier today
when this decision came down,
put this into context for us.
Jessica, why is this case
so important for us?
This is really the Supreme Court
working to put a preemptive stop
to any potential election
chaos as we head into the 2024
election cycle.
So what this is saying
is that state lawmakers of any party,
they do not have the final say in
determining what
election rules election laws, even voting
maps will go into effect.
They essentially
do not have carte blanche to enact
whatever rules they want.
And state
courts can step in to rule on
whether those laws or rules
are actually constitutional.
This is a much different outcome
than what
these conservative challengers
had pushed for here.
Conservatives especially those backing
Trump in the 2020
election, backing his efforts to overturn
the 2020 election.
They had pushed this theory
known as the independent state
legislature, a theory saying that
because the federal constitution
says that legislatures are
the ones
who are in charge of the time, place
and manner of elections,
that legislatures is
only should be able to prescribe
what the rules are surrounding
federal elections.
But the Supreme Court today
in a 63 decision with Chief Justice
John Roberts writing the opinion,
saying no,
that isn't the case,
that state courts do have a role here.
This is from the opinion
that Roberts wrote.
It says State courts
retain the authority
to apply state constitutional restraints
when legislatures act
under the power conferred
upon them by the elections clause.
And he did continue to explain
how historically
state courts, federal courts,
they have routinely stepped in
to maybe put constraints
on a state legislature
or even a federal legislature
if they enact certain laws.
As we see,
that's the power of the courts
to review these laws.
This is a decision
that no doubt has been celebrated
by voting rights groups.
We even saw the former president, Barack
Obama, celebrating this decision
from this from this court.
But Barack Obama wrote this.
He said
they rejected the fringe
independent state
legislature, a theory that threatened
to upend
our democracy
and dismantle
our system of checks and balances
by giving state legislatures
near-total control of federal election.
Laws.
This ruling is a resounding
rejection of the far
right theory
that has been peddled
by election deniers and extremists here.
I will warn one thing in this opinion.
The chief justice in
writing it did say that
state courts don't have, quote,
free reign.
Putting some information in there
about maybe
federal courts reviewing state
court decisions.
So while this does sort of put
the kibosh on free reign
for state legislatures,
there could be some litigation
in the future
depending on how state courts
step in when it comes to elections.
So there will be further litigation.
But at least for the 2024 election,
things should be chaos free.
Some some foreshadowing there
from the chief
justice, really a complex legal case
and not their final decisions.
Some big ones coming up potentially
over the next few days
exactly by end of the week likely.
We know you'll be back to discuss them.
Jessica Schneider, thank you so much.