Supreme Court to hear case on state authority over elections

From the AP:

“This case could profoundly alter the balance of power in states and prevent state courts and agencies from providing protections for people’s right to vote,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine. “There’s a wide range of ways the court could rule on this. Taken to its extreme, it would be a radical reworking of our system of running elections.”

In the most extreme example, lawyers said, if the Supreme Court were to rule that no entity besides state legislatures can set rules regarding federal elections, that could stop a governor from vetoing election bills or a state court from blocking rules that set up different voting hours in urban and rural precincts.

Jason Torchinsky, a Republican lawyer who wrote a legal brief urging the high court to take the case, said it is absurd to think the Supreme Court would ultimately allow that. He noted that as recently as 2015, the court agreed that legislatures do not have absolute power in elections, ruling that Arizona’s voter-approved redistricting commission could legally take the authority away from lawmakers to draw district lines.

“I don’t think you can take the theory as far as ‘the legislatures alone can do whatever they want,’” Torchinsky said. “The problem is we have these rogue state courts.”

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