US constitution

The Supreme Court has decided Tuesday that state legislatures do not have untrammeled power to draw congressional districts and must adhere to their own constitutions, which state supreme courts can adjudicate. As such, independent state legislature theory — which the North Carolina state legislature utilized to bring its case before the court — is not a viable legal theory. The decision in Moore v. Harper was 6-3, with Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch taking up the dissent.  The court wrote in its thirty-page decision that, contrary to independent state legislature theory, “The Elections Clause does not vest exclusive and independent authority in state legislatures to set the rules regarding federal elections.

Alvin Bragg has made good on his campaign promise to hold former president Donald J. Trump “accountable” by indicting him under New York law for thirty-four felony counts of falsifying business records. For seven years, Bragg’s predecessor and numerous federal entities considered the same facts and declined to pursue charges. Given Bragg’s well documented leniency toward the violent criminals currently terrorizing New York, it’s difficult to imagine this case would have been brought against anyone but Trump.

The conservative legal movement has again been bludgeoned. The culprit, as has far too often been the case, is once more the Supreme Court’s most mercurial chief justice, John Roberts. In June Medical Services LLC v. Russo, a 5-4 Court majority enjoined Louisiana’s enforcement of its law that would require abortionists to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of a prenatal abattoir. The Court’s four liberals, ever-reliable in their outcome-oriented efforts to further the progressive political agenda, wrote for a pro-abortion plurality. Roberts, for his part, wrote a separate opinion concurring in the judgment — notwithstanding the fact he dissented in a virtually analogous Texas case, Whole Women’s Health v.