Armchair American Blog

Supreme Court Ruling is a Victory for Democracy.

6/30/2023

With just days to go before our nation celebrates its Independence Day on July 4th, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of democracy. In the case of Moore v. Harper the Supreme Court upheld a decision by North Carolina’s top court to strike down a partisan congressional map.

The ruling rejects the notion that under the “independent state legislature theory”, a state legislature has the exclusive and independent authority to set the rules for federal elections and drawing congressional maps. Importantly, the ruling preserves the checks and balances required to safeguard the integrity of our federal elections. It also protects against rogue state legislators overturning the will of the voters by introducing an alternate slate of electors into a presidential election. The ruling won’t protect against voter suppression and all questionable congressional maps, but it is a step in the right direction in favor of federal election integrity.

Independent State Legislature Theory: It is a narrow reading of the Constitution that has been used by some partisan groups to justify the actions of state legislatures to gerrymander electoral maps, pass restrictive voting laws, and ultimately control the outcome of elections.

The Constitution does delegate the administration of federal elections to the states, but with congressional oversight. The two relevant clauses in the Constitution are the “Elections Clause” and the “Presidential Electors Clause”.

The Elections Clause reads, “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.”

The Presidential Electors Clause reads, “Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.” These are the electors who actually vote for the president on behalf of the state in the Electoral College.

Proponents of the independent state legislature theory use the two aforementioned clauses to bolster their claim that state legislatures have exclusive and near absolute power to regulate federal elections. The Supreme Court has rejected this interpretation of the Constitution in several previous cases, maintaining that state courts have oversight responsibility to ensure that laws for federal elections comply with their state constitutions.

The Ruling: In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court rejected the independent state legislature theory and affirmed that North Carolina’s top court had the right to strike down a congressional redistricting map that it deemed unfairly partisan.

According to the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, “State courts retain the authority to apply state constitutional restraints when legislatures act under the power conferred upon them by the Elections Clause.” His opinion further states that the Court rejected the contention that the Elections Clause vests state legislatures with exclusive and independent authority when setting rules governing federal elections.

Results of the Ruling:

It makes it more difficult for dominant parties in state legislatures to gerrymander district voting maps.
It severely weakens the claim that state lawmakers are free to override state courts in setting the rules for casting votes and counting ballots in federal elections.
It ensures that disputes over a state’s elections laws are resolved by state judges and the state supreme court.
It restores the checks and balances to an important part of the federal elections process, as the framers of the Constitution intended.

Implications of the Ruling: The ruling in Moore v. Harper is a repudiation of the independent state legislature theory. Without this ruling rogue state legislatures would be emboldened to run federal elections any way they wanted to, even if it meant violating their state’s constitution.

Taking it to the extreme, if state legislatures had independent authority over federal elections, they could choose a slate of electors in presidential elections favorable to their party, irrespective of the popular vote. Sound farfetched? A team of lawyers working for Donald Trump attempted to create fake slates of electors in seven key states won by Joe Biden, in an attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Fortunately, the scheme failed and may result in criminal prosecutions in several jurisdictions.

The 2024 presidential election is heating up. Throw into the mix several court cases pending against Donald Trump and things are going to get interesting. The Supreme Court decided to hear Moore v. Harper precisely because of the implications that it has for the upcoming presidential election. By taking the independent state legislature theory off of the table, the Supreme Court has lessened the potential for partisan shenanigans.

ChatGPT or any form of artificial intelligence were not used in the writing of this blog.

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Thanks,
Armchair American

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Debt Ceiling Crisis Averted, But Not the Hard Choices.

6/10/2023

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Only in Washington D.C. can you get congratulated for simply doing your job. President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy both took a victory lap last week with the signing into law of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. The President and the Speaker did the right thing by reaching a compromise deal leading to legislation to lift the debt ceiling, thus avoiding a fiscal calamity.

The debt ceiling drama, which had consumed Washington D.C. for the past several weeks is over for now. Let’s hope that Congress can get back to work on more important issues, such as immigration reform, border security, and gun violence.

As I stated in a previous blog on the subject, the debt ceiling showdown could have been avoided if the President pushed through a debt ceiling resolution last fall when the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. Now, with the House of Representatives in the hands of Republicans, Biden had to move away from his position of not negotiating to lift the debt ceiling. It was inevitable that the President would have to negotiate with Speaker McCarthy to get any legislation passed.

Highlights of the Debt Ceiling Legislation:

Suspends the debt limit until January 1, 2025.
Cuts federal spending by $1.5 trillion over a decade by freezing some funding that had been projected to increase next year, and limits all nondefense spending to one percent growth in 2025.
Immediately rescinds $1.38 billion from the I.R.S. Over the next two fiscal years $20 billion of the $80 billion the I.R.S. was to receive through the Inflation Reduction Act will be repurposed for other spending needs.
Imposes new work requirements on food stamp recipients aged 50 to 54 who don’t have children living at home. Previous work requirements only applied to people aged 18 to 49. Veterans, homeless people, and former foster care children are exempted from the work requirements.
Energy projects will be approved more quickly through the establishment of a new lead agency.
Permit and fast track approval was granted for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a natural gas project in West Virginia.
Ends the Biden Administration’s freeze on student loan repayments by the end of August.
Claws back about $29 billion in unspent COVID relief funds to be used to backfill some of the nondefense discretionary spending cuts.

In the Fine Print:

Spending Caps, Not Cuts: The new legislation doesn’t actually reduce spending, it just reduces the rate of growth of spending. Republicans can claim this as a spending cut and Democrats can claim that they prevented any actual cuts.
Emergency Spending: According to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the debt ceiling legislation does nothing to limit the Senate’s ability to approve emergency supplemental funds for national security, Ukraine, and other national interests.
Cost to Food Stamp Program: According to the Congressional Budget Office, the exemption of veterans and homeless from work requirements will actually add approximately 78,000 people monthly to the program. This will cost the program an additional $2.1 billion over a decade.
Automatic Spending Cut Triggers: Congress must pass spending bills each year and incorporate the cuts agreed to in the new debt agreement. If not, the new legislation imposes an automatic one percent cut in all spending, including the military and veterans’ programs. Neither party would stomach such cuts. Medicare and Social Security would be exempt from any automatic cuts.

In the end, the debt ceiling legislation was a win for both President Biden and Speaker McCarthy. The President can claim success for signing into law a truly bipartisan piece of legislation and minimizing draconian budget cuts that Republicans were demanding. McCarthy can claim that he extracted some spending cuts and imposed new spending discipline on the Democrats. He also showed that he could lead the House and get results in the face of strong opposition from the conservative members of his party who demanded far steeper spending cuts. It will be interesting to see if he is punished by the Freedom Caucus for not extracting more spending cuts from the Democrats.

The spending “cuts” won’t put a dent in the massive federal debt and ongoing budget deficits that this country faces. But at least the debt ceiling negotiations got the federal government talking about the need for fiscal discipline. But it will be up to the American electorate to demand that tough choices be made, sooner rather than later. The longer the tough fiscal choices are ignored, the more painful the solutions will become.

My views on the debt ceiling have not changed. I still think that it should be abolished. Government debates over pubic debt and borrowing limits should be part of the appropriations and budgeting processes. It is a little late to think about how to pay for something after you have already ordered it.

If you enjoy reading this type of commentary please subscribe to my blog and tell a friend. You will receive an email notification when new blogs are posted. The email will come from the site’s email: armchairamerican1776 @gmail.com.

Thanks,
Armchair American

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Supreme Court Ruling is a Victory for Democracy.

Debt Ceiling Crisis Averted, But Not the Hard Choices.

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