It sounds complicated, confusing, and esoteric. But if the U.S. Supreme Court legitimizes the independent state legislature theory (ISLT), many experts say it would upend hundreds of years of constitutional law and dramatically restructure the relationship between state legislatures and state Supreme Courts. The Justices have already heard oral arguments in Moore v. Harper. Now we await a ruling, expected in June 2023. But we’re impatient here at Y’all-itics. So, the Jasons called up our resident constitutional law expert, Professor Stephen Vladeck from the University of Texas School of Law to learn what could happen. Vladeck says it’s not that democracy is hanging in the balance in the short term, but that future state legislatures could alter Presidential elections in profoundly undemocratic ways. Think “Stop the Steal” on steroids. And that’s one of the reasons an odd collection of bedfellows have coalesced against the theory and filed Friend of the Court briefs, including one signed by the Chief Justices of all 50 states, something that’s never happened before.

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Stephen Vladeck, University of Texas School of Law