- The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a fringe right-wing elections theory in a 6-3 ruling.
- Justice Clarence Thomas, a pillar of the court's conservative bloc, is not happy about it.
- He wrote in his dissent that the court shouldn't have taken up the case to begin with and that the majority opinion is "plainly advisory."
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a dubious right-wing theory that would have had dangerous and far-reaching consequences for the democratic process.
And Justice Clarence Thomas — who was one of three justices dissenting in the case — is not thrilled.
Broadly, the theory at the heart of Moore v. Harper — known as the "independent state legislature" theory — would give state lawmakers nearly unchecked power to gerrymander electoral maps and upend federal elections.
The case centers on a gerrymandered congressional map in North Carolina drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature that heavily favored GOP candidates. Voters in the state challenged the map, and the North Carolina Supreme Court ultimately struck it down, saying it was an "egregious and intentional partisan gerrymander" and violated the state's constitution.
Two lawmakers in the state asked the US Supreme Court to take up the case based on the independent state legislature theory. But the balance of power shifted on the North Carolina Supreme Court from a liberal-leaning majority to a decidedly conservative one, which in April went back and cleared the way for Republican lawmakers to draw maps heavily favoring their party.
Thomas wrote that with the original case now decided in the lawmakers' favor, the argument before the Supreme Court was "moot." But a majority of his colleagues still decided to hear the case — and explicitly shot down the theory in their ruling in a 6-3 vote.
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote the majority opinion in the case, writing that the Constitution "does not exempt state legislatures from the ordinary constraints imposed by state law."
Thomas wasn't happy.
In his dissent, Thomas wrote that the court's purpose is to "resolve not questions and issues but 'Cases' or 'Controversies.'"
"As a corollary of that basic constitutional principle, the Court 'is without power to decide moot questions or to give advisory opinions which cannot affect the rights of the litigants in the case before it,'" he added.
Thomas went on to say that by taking up Moore v. Harper, the high court was considering a decision that "has since been overruled and supplanted by a final judgment resolving all claims in petitioners' favor."
"The issue on which it opines — a federal defense to claims already dismissed on other grounds — can no longer affect the judgment in this litigation in any way," he wrote. "As such, the question is indisputably moot, and today's majority opinion is plainly advisory."
Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch also dissented.
Watch:
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