Independent state legislature theory

rdf:langString Independent state legislature theory

rdf:langString The independent state legislature theory or independent state legislature doctrine (ISL) posits that the Constitution of the United States delegates authority to regulate federal elections within a state to that state's elected lawmakers without any checks and balances from state courts, governors, or other bodies with legislative power (such as constitutional conventions or independent commissions). Advocates of ISL ground their interpretation in the Elections and Electors Clauses of the U.S. Constitution. Where state legislatures enact laws that conflict with their state constitutions, including provisions added to those constitutions through ballot initiatives passed by a state's citizens, proponents of ISL believe that state legislation rather than state constitutions take precedence. They also argue that only the federal courts, not state courts, can resolve conflicts between state laws and state constitutions with respect to administration of federal elections within a state. The doctrine first appeared in legal arguments raised by attorneys for then-presidential candidate George W. Bush, seeking to stop the recount of votes in Florida during the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Most recently, the ISL theory has arisen in the context of congressional redistricting, the process whereby each state adopts new congressional districts every ten years using updated census data. In the case of Moore v. Harper, Republican state lawmakers in North Carolina have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule the North Carolina Supreme Court's determination that congressional districts North Carolina lawmakers had drawn to favor Republican candidates in races for the U.S. Congress violated the North Carolina Constitution's prohibition on partisan gerrymandering. The Court rejected ISL by majority opinion as recently as 2015, though four current Supreme Court justices have voiced interest in adopting some version of the doctrine. As a matter of constitutional interpretation, ISL is fiercely contested. While often defended on originalist grounds, numerous originalist scholars filed amicus briefs in Moore rejecting the theory with the Supreme Court.