LANSING – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel joined a coalition of 22 Attorneys General in filing a friend of the court brief in Moore v. Harper, a case in which the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to adopt the radical “independent state legislature theory” (ISLT) and give state legislators the sole, unchecked authority to make election rules at the expense of voters and other state institutions. The coalition is supporting North Carolina, its voters, and voting-rights organizations in their challenge.   

In the brief, the attorneys general argue that ISLT lacks any historical or constitutional foundation and that its adoption would invalidate a large swath of state election law that does not come from the state legislature, such as state constitutions, court decisions, and regulations. Elections would thus become unworkable and impossible to administer.  

"We cannot afford to allow any state to adopt election practices that would cause chaos in election administration nationwide," Nessel said. "This is a bad idea for democracy. Clear and consistent rules are vital to the administration of free and fair elections. I gladly stand with my colleagues in supporting the State of North Carolina in asking that the U.S. Supreme Court reject this attempt to upend settled election practices." 

The U.S. Constitution provides that a state’s legislature may set rules governing federal elections. Historically, the Supreme Court has interpreted “legislature” flexibly to include any state actor or entity who exercises lawmaking power. The Court has never questioned that a state court has the power to rule on election statutes and state constitutional provisions. 

Consistent with this precedent, North Carolina’s Supreme Court interpreted its state constitution to prohibit partisan gerrymandering and struck down North Carolina’s badly gerrymandered congressional maps as violating the state constitution. At the request of the North Carolina state legislators, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether the ISLT is correct, and whether the North Carolina Supreme Court was thus without power to prohibit partisan gerrymandering. At the U.S. Supreme Court, the North Carolina state legislators are arguing that only state legislators — not other actors like the state Supreme Court, executives, or voters —can make election rules. ISLT is gaining traction among some academics and jurists, but it lacks any support in American history or precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. The theory would unravel states’ election processes and impede election officials’ ability to administer free and orderly elections. 

The attorneys general raise two main points: