In an October 28th op-ed published by The New York Times, Illinois law dean and professor Vikram David Amar and co-authors Akhil Reed Amar and Neal Kumar Katyal expressed grave concern over federal courts, especially the Supreme Court, getting involved in state-law matters. An excerpt follows:
"Just as they did in the infamous Bush v. Gore litigation in 2000, Republican lawyers are trying to get the Supreme Court to undermine state court rulings protecting voting rights under state law. Their theory? That state courts, by relying in part on state constitutions, are wrongly exercising power that belongs to state legislatures.
"This idea that state constitutions are irrelevant, and that all that matters is what state legislatures say, is preposterous. Yet recent events suggest this wrongheaded theory may have some traction among the justices."
Read the full op-ed at nytimes.com.
Note: The views expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Illinois College of Law.