Steve Vladeck of the University of Texas School of Law — identified by his employer as “a nationally recognized expert on the federal courts, constitutional law, national security law, and military justice” — rebuffed a GOP leader from Wisconsin this week on the idea that the U.S. Supreme Court could help that political party’s side in a redistricting case.
The Wisconsin state Supreme Court ruled this week, with a four-judge majority propelling the decision, for a redo to boundaries for state legislative districts, rejecting maps that originated with Republicans in the state legislature but that they were unable to impose through an override of the Democratic governor’s veto on their own. The boundaries were ever in use at all because a differently configured state Supreme Court — meaning the bench before the ascent of a victorious, liberal Justice earlier this year — had pushed through their implementation, producing a new set of contentions against the state’s redistricting scheme from concerned observers.
In addition, challengers pointed to the evidently non-contiguous nature of some lines. And in recent elections, Republicans’ records provided their own compelling case, with the party scoring commanding state legislative majorities that significantly surpassed their shares of statewide vote totals.
Robin Vos, the Republican currently leading the lower chamber of Wisconsin’s state legislature, had proposed in a response to the new ruling from his state’s highest judicial body that the national Supreme Court would be of help, but Vladeck pointed to the consistent tie to state-level considerations among factors in the case. In other words, there was no opening for that national body as the lawyer explained it.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has neither statutory nor constitutional jurisdiction to review how a state supreme court applies its state constitution to its state legislative districts,” Vladeck said Friday. “(Even at its most robust, the “Independent State Legislature” theory would only authorize #SCOTUS review of how a state supreme court applied its state constitution to *federal* congressional or presidential elections.)”
(Even at its most robust, the “Independent State Legislature” theory would only authorize #SCOTUS review of how a state supreme court applied its state constitution to *federal* congressional or presidential elections.)
— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) December 23, 2023
