Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas got reminded of his own absurd judicial philosophy during oral arguments on a case dealing with federal and state election rules.
The case is Moore v. Harper, which CNN reports originated as the result of a law in North Carolina.
The North Carolina GOP legislature … argues that state constitutions and state courts have little or no authority to impose limits on how state legislatures craft their rules for federal elections.
The controversial “independent state legislature” theory is being used by Republican lawmakers to argue that state courts could not redraw the congressional map the legislature sought to enact in 2021.
A version of theory was promoted by allies of former President Donald Trump during their attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Arguing on behalf of Common Cause in opposition to the North Carolina legislature was former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, who noted that the high court had once ruled “states rights” on the issue of abortion and then said such a standard didn’t apply to regulations on guns.
Thomas tried to argue against Katyal:
“You said this court normally doesn’t second-guess state court’s interpretation of their own Constitution. Would you say that in the case of Baker v. Carr?”
Katyal replied:
“I don’t think you declare it unconstitutional. Any number of things. To say they got their own Constitution wrong is just a matter of interpretation.”
That led Thomas to inquire:
“Let me ask you this. It may be a bit unfair. If the state legislature had been very, very generous to minority voters in their redistricting and the state supreme court said under their state constitution that this was — it violated their own state Constitution of North Carolina, would you be making the same argument?”
Katyal:
“Yes.”
Later, Katyal again used Thomas’ own flawed reasoning to prove that conservatives on the high court talk out of both sides of their mouths:
“The North Carolina court is interpreting the elections clauses and powers and the question is whether or not they have misread it or not and so I think that’s the source of the substantive — alleged substantive violation here. The spirit of your question, for 233 years, this court’s never gotten involved and said, hey, we’re going to, you know, say the North Carolina court got it wrong or their provision was too abstract for enforcement or anything like that. Rather, this court has always stayed on the sidelines, let the state process unfold subject to that other part of the trident check, Congress, in the second half of the elections cause.”
If the six conservative justices rule in favor of North Carolina, it will be the end of free and fair elections in the United States. Each state will be able to set their own election standards and disenfranchise anyone they want. They’ll even be able to overrule the will of the voters and choose the winners and losers in each election based solely on political party.
Clarence Thomas’ bullshit is finally starting to catch up with him.
