On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency application for a stay of the North Carolina State supreme court’s decision to invalidate the congressional map that the legislature enacted in 2021 and the state trial court’s decision to block a second map enacted by the legislature on February 17.
If the high court had granted an emergency stay, the upcoming 2022 elections would have been conducted under the legislature’s Feb. 17 map, while the court considered the case for a decision at some later date. Read the court’s order.
Map and Court Decision Timeline
Feb. 23 2022: A state trial court approved the legislature’s state senate and house maps but rejected the congressional map due to noncompliance with the state Supreme Court’s standards per its Feb. 14 order. The trial court adopted the special master’s congressional map instead.
Feb. 17 2022: The legislature adopted new congressional and state legislative plans
Feb. 4 2022: The North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s Jan 11th decision upholding new congressional and state legislative maps. The court declared the maps a partisan gerrymander under the state constitution.
Jan. 11 2022: A state trial court upheld the legislature’s congressional, state Senate, and House district maps against partisan and racial gerrymandering claims.
The order, written by Chief Justice Roberts, had 3 dissents. Justice Kavanaugh in a concurring opinion voiced concern over election practicalities as the reason for the denial; ” [because of] the impending primary elections in North Carolina, it is too late for the federal courts to order that the district lines be changed for the 2022 primary and general elections, just as it was too late for the federal courts to do so in the Alabama redistricting case last month.”
Despite the denial of an emergency stay application, Justice Kavanaugh expressed his willingness to take on the case. ” if the Court receives petitions for certiorari raising the issue, I believe that the Court should grant certiorari in an appropriate case—either in this case from North Carolina or in a similar case from another State. If the Court does so, the Court can carefully consider and decide the issue next Term after full briefing and oral argument.”
In addition to Justice Kavanaugh, the three dissenting Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas all expressed interest in examining the legal theory proffered by the petitioners referred to as the “independent state legislature doctrine.” The doctrine poses the argument that the Election Clause of the U.S. Constitution limits what state courts can do when it comes to mapping electoral lines.
The Election Clause states: “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”
Under this view, a State court cannot invalidate a legislature’s enacted map on state constitutional grounds. Only federal law would supersede a validly enacted map by a legislature.
Read Media Coverage in: NPR, New York Times, ScotusBlog, and Wash. Post.
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