Former President Barack Obama spoke out in favor of the Supreme Court ruling against the independent state legislature theory.
The high court ruling was praised by Obama, who called the independent state legislature theory a "fringe ... theory that threatened to upend our democracy and dismantle our system of checks and balances."
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This ruling rejects the far-right theory that threatened to undermine our democracy, and makes clear that courts can continue defending voters' rights—in North Carolina and in every state. Thanks to @RedistrictFdn and @EricHolder for helping make this happen.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 27, 2023
"Today, the Supreme Court rejected the fringe independent state legislature theory that threatened to upend our democracy and dismantle our system of checks and balances," Obama tweeted.
The former president spoke out in favor of the ruling prior to having lunch with President Joe Biden at the White House. The lunch is a rare post-presidency trip for Obama, who last visited the executive mansion in September 2022. Biden served as Obama's vice president from 2009 to 2017.
"This ruling rejects the far-right theory that threatened to undermine our democracy, and makes clear that courts can continue defending voters' rights — in North Carolina and in every state," he said.
The high court ruled 6-3 in Moore v. Harper against the independent state legislature theory, which claims that a state's courts are not permitted to set aside congressional maps drawn by the state legislature, writing that it "does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review."
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The ruling was seen as a blow to Republicans in North Carolina who sought to prevent the courts from drawing congressional maps. The state Supreme Court threw out maps that favored the GOP.
After Republicans took the majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court, the high court threw out a ruling from the previously Democratic-majority court on the congressional maps, which cleared the way for the legislature to redraw the districts. The legislatures that brought the lawsuit to the federal Supreme Court requested they rule on the merits of the legal theory despite the state court ruling being thrown out.