Landmark Supreme Court decision refuses to back challenge that could have gutted voting rights

The Supreme Court issued its hotly-anticipated decision in Moore v. Harper on Tuesday — delivering a decisive victory for state-level voting rights and redistricting protections and dealing a death blow to the right-wing legal theory known as "independent state legislature."

In a 6-3 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court held that state legislatures do not have absolute authority over election law, and that state constitutions can require them to abide by fair redistricting or to protect voting rights, with state-level judges having the power to enforce those rules.

Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

The case stemmed from the North Carolina Supreme Court blocking the legislature from an aggressive gerrymandering scheme. The legislature sued under a novel theory that the Elections Clause of the Constitution, which says state legislatures may, where Congress has not intervened, decide the "The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives." It means that state legislatures have blanket power to decide all election and representation rules, and can even ignore state courts that try to overrule them.

Many legal experts feared that a decision in favor of the North Carolina legislature would open the floodgates for Republican states to effectively gut voting rights throughout much of the country.

The case was effectively rendered moot when a Republican majority took over the North Carolina judiciary and reversed their prior decision, allowing the legislature to move forward with gerrymandering in that state. However, the Supreme Court still decided the case on the merits.

"James Madison extolled judicial review as one of the key virtues of a constitutional system," wrote Roberts. "The Elections Clause does not carve out an exception to that fundamental principle. When state legislatures prescribe the rules concerning federal elections, they remain subject to the ordinary exercise of state judicial review."