Court rejects GOP in North Carolina case that could have reshaped elections beyond the state
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that state courts can curtail the actions of their legislatures when it comes to federal redistricting and elections, rejecting arguments by North Carolina Republicans that could have dramatically altered races for Congress and president in that state and beyond.
The justices by a 6-3 vote upheld a decision by North Carolina's top court that struck down a congressional districting plan as excessively partisan under state law.
The high court did, though, indicate there could be limits on state court efforts to police elections for Congress and president, suggesting that more election-related court cases over the issue are likely.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court that "state courts retain the authority to apply state constitutional restraints when legislatures act under the power conferred upon them by the Elections Clause. But federal courts must not abandon their own duty to exercise judicial review."
The decision was the fourth major case of the term in which conservative and liberal justices joined to reject the most aggressive legal arguments put forth by conservative state elected officials and advocacy groups. Earlier decisions on voting rights, a Native American child welfare law and a Biden administration immigration policy also unexpectedly cut across ideological lines on the court.
The practical effect of Tuesday's decision is minimal in North Carolina, where the state Supreme Court, under a new Republican majority, already has undone its redistricting ruling. Another redistricting case from Ohio is pending, if the justices want to say more about the issue before next year's elections.
Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch would have dismissed the North Carolina case because of the intervening state court action.
Former President Barack Obama, in a rare public comment on a court decision, applauded the outcome. "This ruling is a resounding rejection of the far-right theory that has been peddled by election deniers and extremists seeking to undermine our democracy. And it makes clear that courts can continue defending voters' rights — in North Carolina and in every state," Obama said in a statement.
At the same time, the leader of a Republican redistricting group said he was pleased the court made clear there are limits on state courts. The decision "should serve as a warning to state courts inclined to reach beyond the constitutional bounds of judicial review. This is a first, positive step toward reining in recent overreaches of state courts," Adam Kincaid, president and executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, said in a statement.
Derek Muller, a University of Iowa law professor and elections expert, said Tuesday's decision leaves some room to challenge state court rulings on federal election issues, "but these are likely to be rare cases."
"The vast majority of state court decisions that could affect federal elections will likely continue without any change," Muller said.
The North Carolina case attracted outsized attention because four conservative justices had suggested that the Supreme Court should curb state courts' power in elections for president and Congress.
Opponents of the idea, known as the independent legislature theory, had argued that the effects of a robust ruling for North Carolina Republicans could be reach much further than just that one state's redistricting.
Potentially at stake were more than 170 state constitutional provisions, over 650 state laws delegating authority to make election policies to state and local officials, and thousands of regulations down to the location of polling places, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.
The justices heard arguments in December in an appeal by Republican leaders in the North Carolina Legislature. Their efforts to draw congressional districts heavily in their favor were blocked by a Democratic majority on the state Supreme Court on grounds that the GOP map violated the state Constitution.
A court-drawn map produced seven seats for each party in last year's midterm elections in the highly competitive state.
The question for the justices was whether the U.S. Constitution's provision giving state legislatures the power to make the rules about the "times, places and manner" of congressional elections cuts state courts out of the process.
Former federal appeals court judge Michael Luttig, a prominent conservative who has joined the legal team defending the North Carolina court decision, said in the fall that the outcome could have transformative effects on American elections. "This is the single most important case on American democracy — and for American democracy — in the nation's history," Luttig said.
Leading Republican lawmakers in North Carolina told the Supreme Court that the Constitution's "carefully drawn lines place the regulation of federal elections in the hands of state legislatures, Congress and no one else."
During nearly three hours of arguments, the justices seemed skeptical of making a broad ruling in the case. Liberal and conservative justices seemed to take issue with the main thrust of a challenge asking them to essentially eliminate the power of state courts to strike down legislature-drawn, gerrymandered congressional district maps on grounds that they violate state constitutions.
In North Carolina, a new round of redistricting is expected to go forward and produce a map with more Republican districts.
The state's Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, praised Tuesday's decision, but also implicitly acknowledged that it does nothing to inhibit Republicans who control the legislature from drawing a congressional map that is more favorable to them.
Cooper, who by state law can't block redistricting plans approved by lawmakers, said that "Republican legislators in North Carolina and across the country remain a very real threat to democracy as they continue to pass laws to manipulate elections for partisan gain by interfering with the freedom to vote."
Justices make it more difficult to convict someone of making a threat
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday to make it more difficult to convict a person of making a violent threat, including against the president or other elected officials.
The Biden administration had warned that the internet and social media have expanded the number and kinds of threats in recent years, including online harassment, intimidation and stalking. And they warned the case could affect the ability to prosecute threats against public officials, which have increased in recent years.
The high court was ruling in a case that involves a man who was sentenced to more than four years in prison in Colorado for sending threatening Facebook messages. The man's lawyers had argued that he suffers from mental illness and never intended his messages to be threatening.
The question for the court was whether prosecutors must show that a person being prosecuted for making a threat knew their behavior was threatening or whether prosecutors just have to prove that a reasonable person would see it as threatening.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote for a majority of the court that prosecutors have to show that "the defendant had some subjective understanding of the threatening nature of his statements."
"The State must show that the defendant consciously disregarded a substantial risk that his communications would be viewed as threatening violence," she said.
Seven justices agreed with the outcome. Two conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett, dissented.
The Biden administration had been among those arguing for the lower "reasonable person" standard.
"Threats of violence against public officials in particular have proliferated in recent years, including threats against Members of Congress, judges, local officials, and election workers," the Biden administration had noted, saying the case could affect prosecutions in those cases.
Speech of all kinds is generally protected by the free speech clause in the Constitution's First Amendment but so-called "true threats" are an exception.
The specific case before the justices involved Billy Counterman. He contacted a musician through Facebook in 2010 to ask her if she would perform in a benefit concert he said he was organizing. The woman, Coles Whalen, responded but nothing ever came of it.
Whalen forgot about the exchange, but four years later, Counterman began sending her Facebook messages again. He ultimately sent hundreds of messages including ones that were rambling and delusional and others that were quotes and memes. Whalen never responded and blocked Counterman several times, but he would just create a new account and continue sending messages.
Counterman believed Whalen was responding through other websites and Facebook pages. Whalen became concerned after Counterman's messages — including "You're not being good for human relations. Die. Don't need you." and "Was that you in the white Jeep?" — suggested he was following her in person. Eventually, the messages were reported to law enforcement and Counterman was arrested. He was convicted and lost an appeal.
The justices' ruling is a victory for Counterman and sends his case back to lower courts for another look. In a statement, his attorney John Elwood said that they are "gratified that the Supreme Court agreed with Billy Counterman that the First Amendment requires proof of mental state before it can imprison a person for statements that are perceived as threatening."
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, whose office prosecuted Counterman, said in a statement that the decision will make it "more difficult to stop stalkers from tormenting their victims."
The case is Counterman v. Colorado, 22-138.
North Carolina charter school cannot force girls to wear skirts to school
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place an appellate ruling barring a North Carolina public charter school from requiring girls to wear skirts to school.
The justices declined without comment to hear an appeal from the Charter Day School in the eastern North Carolina town of Leland. A federal appeals court had ruled that the school's dress code violated students' constitutional rights.
School founder Baker Mitchell had said the dress code was intended to promote "chivalry" by the male students and respect for the female students, according to court documents.
The dress code already has been changed to allow girls to wear pants, in line with the lower court ruling.
Court unfreezes Louisiana redistricting case that could boost Black voting power before 2024
By Kevin McGill, Mark Sherman, and Sara Cline
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday lifted its hold on a Louisiana political remap case, increasing the likelihood that the Republican-dominated state will have to redraw boundary lines to create a second mostly Black congressional district.
For more than a year, there has been a legal battle over the GOP-drawn political boundaries, with a federal judge, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards and opponents saying that the map is unfair and discriminates against Black voters.
The map, which was used in Louisiana's November congressional election, has white majorities in five of six districts, all currently held by Republicans. This is despite Black people accounting for one-third of the state's population. Another mostly Black district could deliver another congressional seat to Democrats.
"I'm super excited," said Ashley Shelton, head of the Louisiana-based Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, one of the groups challenging the maps. "What this does is it puts us back on track to realize a second majority-minority district."
In a written statement, the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus said, while work still needs to be done, it is "very confident" the state will have two majority-Black districts by the 2024 congressional election.
"As I have consistently stated, this is about simple math, basic fairness, and the rule of law," Edwards said Monday. "I am confident we will have a fair map in the near future."
Every 10 years, state lawmakers — armed with new U.S. Census Bureau information — redraw political boundaries for seats in the U.S. House, state Senate, state House, Board of Elementary and Secondary Education and the Public Service Commission. The process ultimately affects which political parties, viewpoints and people control the government bodies that write laws, set utility rates and create public school policies.
The Louisiana case had been on hold pending the decision in a redistricting case involving Alabama. Monday's order follows the court's rejection earlier in June of a congressional redistricting map in Alabama.
In both states, Black voters are a majority in just one congressional district. Lower courts had ruled that the maps raised concerns that Black voting power had been diluted, in violation of the landmark federal Voting Rights Act.
The justices had allowed the state's challenged map to be used in last year's elections while they considered the Alabama case.
In Louisiana, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick struck down the map in June 2022 for violating the Voting Rights Act, saying "evidence of Louisiana's long and ongoing history of voting-related discrimination weighs heavily in favor of Plaintiffs." Dick ordered lawmakers to hold a special session to redesign the map and include a second majority-Black district. However, lawmakers failed to meet their deadline and, as a result, Dick said she would enact a map of her choosing.
The Louisiana case had been appealed to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans when the high court put the issue on hold. The justices said the appeal could go forward before next year's congressional elections.
U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, Louisiana's only Democratic and Black congressman, applauded the Supreme Court for lifting its hold.
"This decision shows that in a healthy democracy fair and equitable representation matters, whether to the people of Louisiana or anywhere else in the world," Carter tweeted.
The redistricting process in Louisiana proved to be a political tug-of-war, with the Republican-dominated Legislature and Democrats, including Edwards, fighting over the boundaries since February 2022. Along with the legal battle, the debate over the map included Edwards vetoing the boundaries and the Legislature overriding his veto — the first time in nearly three decades that lawmakers refused to accept a governor's refusal of a bill they had passed.
Republicans have stood by their statements that the map is fair, and argue that trying to include the state's widely dispersed Black population in two separate congressional districts would result in two districts with very narrow Black majorities that could actually diminish Black voting power.
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McGill reported from New Orleans and Cline from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Lawsuits over team doctor's sexual abuse proceed against Ohio State
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday left in place a decision that allows more than 230 men to sue Ohio State University over decades-old sexual abuse by a university doctor, the late Richard Strauss.
Two cases involving the abuse were on a list of many cases the court said it would not hear. And, as is typical, the court did not comment in saying it would not hear the cases.
Ohio State University had urged the court to review a ruling by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that revived lawsuits that had been dismissed. The men who sued are among hundreds of former student-athletes and other alumni who say they were abused by Strauss, who worked at the school from 1978 to 1998.
They say university officials failed to stop him despite complaints raised as early as the late 1970s. Many of them allege Strauss abused them during required physicals and other medical exams at campus athletic facilities, a student health center, his home and an off-campus clinic.
Strauss killed himself in 2005 at age 67. The university in 2018 announced an investigation into Strauss' abuse and the university's conduct. It has apologized to his victims and reached over $60 million in settlements with at least 296 people.
But the university eventually sought to have the remaining unsettled cases dismissed, arguing that the time limit for the claims had long passed.
The remaining plaintiffs have argued that they filed timely claims and that the time limit didn't start running until the 2018 investigation into Strauss' abuse made his conduct public. The men say that was when they first learned that the school had been aware of Strauss' abuse and failed to protect them from him. Many also only realized then that they'd been victims of abuse since Strauss disguised his abuse as medical care, their lawyers said.
In a statement, lawyers for the plaintiffs said they were pleased the Supreme Court decided not to hear the cases. "We look forward to returning to the trial court, having our clients' stories heard, and gathering further evidence of OSU's widespread cover-up of Dr. Strauss's serial predation," they said.
Court dismisses case in which Democratic lawmakers sued over Trump hotel lease
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a case it had planned to hear about limits on lawsuits filed by members of Congress against the federal government, in a dispute that involved the former Trump International Hotel in Washington.
The justices threw out a federal appeals court ruling that had allowed a lawsuit by Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee to continue. The court's decision Monday had been sought by the Biden Justice Department, which had worried that the appeals court ruling, if let stand, could lead to a flood of lawsuits from individual members of Congress against the administration.
The had lawmakers filed their complaint in 2017 over the Trump administration's refusal to turn over information about the Trump Organization's lease of the hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, between the White House and the Capitol.
The high court's action was prompted by the decision of the Democratic lawmakers, earlier in June, to voluntarily end their case in a federal district court.
Donald Trump's family no longer owns the hotel, now a Waldorf Astoria, and much of the information the lawmakers sought was eventually provided. The only documents that had been at issue were internal legal opinions.
The justices stepped into the case last month, at the urging of the Biden administration. The Justice Department had argued that it was important to wipe the appellate ruling from the books so as not to encourage many other individual lawmakers to sue this administration or future ones in similar fashion.
Members of Congress ordinarily can't go to federal court as individuals or in small groups and assert that their status as lawmakers gives them the right to sue when the administration in power refuses to comply with their demands for information.
But a 95-year-old law allows any seven members of the House Oversight Committee or five senators on that body's similar committee to request and be provided certain information from federal agencies.
Negotiations have almost always resolved any disputes. But the question of how to enforce the law when efforts at compromise fail has never been resolved. Since the law's enactment in 1928, lawmakers sued only twice previously and those cases, like this one, ended without significant legal rulings.
