Have you ever heard of Independent State Legislature Theory? You’d be forgiven if the answer is no. ISLT is a semi-obscure theory championed by right-wing kooks who state, and I’m paraphrasing, state legislatures have complete control over how national elections are administered in that respective state. This power is absolute and not, I repeat NOT, subject to judicial review.
Red state legislatures have been pushing this suspect interpretation of constitutional language, that would allow them to overturn the results of any election they didn’t like, for a while now.
ISLT is a direct frontal assault on the foundations of representative government. Affirming the idea that state legislatures— some of which are gerrymandered beyond all recognition — can control the administration and outcome of national elections would effectively end democracy as we know it. Three Supreme Court justices thought that was OK.
Individual State Legislature Theory was struck down by a vote of 6-3. You already know at least two of the three justices who dissented. It’s the same two justices who enjoy cashing in their private jet air mines for luxury vacations with their billionaire patrons, oh yeah, and Justice Neil Gorsuch.
I can’t overstate how looney ISLT, taken to its logical conclusion is, and it came two votes from being the law of the land. Justices John Robert, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh joined the three liberal justices in saying they’d like to ride this democracy thing out and see what happens. Kavanaugh, in an individual opinion, did leave the door open for the trolls to possibly sneak back in at a later date.
There are two ways to look at the court’s decision:
Glass half full: The court saw through the nonsense and struck down a bad-faith argument to weaponize vague constitutional language against democracy
or
Glass half empty: A year into the Dobbs backlash the few conservatives on the court still concerned with its legitimacy threw us all a bone and decided to let our votes count. For now.
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