The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case on whether state legislatures have complete control of elections. This bizarre theory, which was bandied about after Trump lost in 2020, would hold that state courts and state governors would have no say in any matter election-related.
If there is one thing that distinguishes the American constitution, it is the effort to avoid concentrated power. The entire document is about checks and balances, separation of powers, and a federal system. There are checks within checks. Not only are there three branches, but one of the branches has two different legislative bodies. The President serves only a four-year term. The President can be impeached. The President can veto bills. The veto can be overridden. Some powers are national, some are state. The Supreme Court jurisdiction can be set by Congress.
As James Madison put it, the government must first be able to control the people, but then it also has to control itself.
To think that these Founding Fathers would have supported a doctrine that state legislatures have absolute power over something as important as elections is goofy. And yet a number of justices on the Court seem to be sympathetic to this idea.
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