Following the Supreme Court's decision to hear the Moore v. Harper case in its 2022 term, Illinois Law dean and professor Vikram Amar spoke to CNN about the independent state legislature theory and all that is at stake.
Amar has written extensively about the dangers of the independent state legislature theory, which would grant supreme power to state legislatures when it comes to federal elections - to the extent that states could ignore the will of the voters and allow their lawmakers to pick the president.
Discussing the issue with CNN, Amar argued that conservative justices who view themselves as originalist interpreters of the Constitution’s text cannot legitimately foist this new doctrine, which he refers to in shorthand as “ISL,” onto the country.
Plus, the people writing the Constitution had a more expansive view of the term “legislature” that’s in line with allowing courts to protect the rights of voters in their states.
“It’s inconsistent with the practices of state legislatures and state constitutions in 1787, and it’s flouting 100 years of clear precedent from 1916 all the way to 2019,” Amar said of ISL.
Read the full article at cnn.com.