Moore v. Harper and the Regulation of Elections

In Moore v. Harper, which involved the intense partisan gerrymandering of North Carolina congressional districts, the Supreme Court tested the so-called Independent State Legislature theory. Plaintiffs argued that the power to design congressional districts was derived solely from the Elections Clause (Art. I, Section 4) of the Constitution. The ability of other branches of government, notably including the judiciary, to tinker with legislative decisions was accordingly circumscribed, even when those branches were invoking the authority of the state constitution. In its holding, a six-justice majority effectively rejected this claim. But curiously, neither the majority nor the dissenters paid any serious attention to the debates that best explain why the Elections Clause was added to the Constitution in 1787.