North Carolina Republicans argue the state's Supreme Court went too far this year on redistricting. The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in the case could strip state court's of power. Full story: https://www.wral.com/u-s-supreme-court-wrangles-over-key-question-in-democracy-who-has-power-over-federal-election-rules/20616809/ The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday in a North Carolina case that could redefine who has the power to decide election rules across the country, giving state legislatures leeway to set the terms of federal elections without oversight from their state courts. Control over the full spectrum of laws governing federal elections is potentially at stake, including voting laws requiring photo identification, mail-in ballot rules and the power to draw congressional election maps. The scope of this lawsuit worries people who fear partisan intent and voter suppression will become more pronounced if the nation’s highest court sides with North Carolina Republicans pushing the case. The case is Moore v. Harper, named for North Carolina Speaker of the House Tim Moore and Rebecca Harper, a voter who, along with several progressive groups, sued Moore and other Republicans last year over election maps drawn by the state legislature’s GOP majority. The state Supreme Court sided with Harper and threw those maps out, ultimately leading North Carolina Republicans to bring this case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Oral arguments lasted three hours Wednesday, with each of nine Supreme Court justices probing the lines of power at issue and the roles that state legislatures, state courts, the U.S. Congress and federal courts are all empowered to play. An attorney for the groups opposing North Carolina lawmakers warned of chaos if the high court embraces the underlying “independent state legislature theory” in the case. That theory holds that, because the U.S. Constitution says state legislatures and Congress determine the “times, places and manner” of federal elections, state courts can’t turn to state constitutions to declare those rules illegal and make substantial changes. A full embrace of this theory could radically limit the impact state constitutions can have on congressional election rules, including whether states can rein in partisan redistricting by adding prohibitions against the practice — which is used to boost one political party’s power in an elected body — to their constitutions. “It is federal law alone that places substantive restrictions on states legislatures performing the task assigned them by the federal constitution,” David Thompson, who represents North Carolina Republican lawmakers in the case, told the court. Accepting that argument would ignore two centuries of practice and the idea that state legislatures are governed by their state constitutions as interpreted by state supreme courts, Neal Katyal, an attorney for groups opposing Republicans in the case, argued. “The blast radius of their theory starts with the size extra large … invalidating 50 state constitutions,” said Katyal, who was an acting U.S. solicitor general under former President Barack Obama. Subscribe to WRAL: https://youtube.com/c/wral5 Follow WRAL: Facebook: https://facebook.com/WRALTV Twitter: https://twitter.com/WRAL IG: https://instagram.com/wral About WRAL-TV: WRAL is your Raleigh, North Carolina news source. Check out our videos for the latest news in Raleigh, local sports, Raleigh weather, and more at https://WRAL.com #localnews #northcarolina #politics