Supreme Court refuses to hear Republican lawsuit seeking to roll back voting rights measures

20 May

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The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a lawsuit filed by nearly a dozen Michigan Republican lawmakers seeking to roll back voting rights measures passed by voters in 2018 and 2022.

The suit, filed in 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, argued that because the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution, found in Article I, Section 4, provides for state legislatures to regulate the times, places, and manner of holding federal elections, measures passed by citizen-led petition initiatives are unconstitutional as they infringed on the state Legislature’s role within state election law.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to take the case was the third, and now final, rejection after the lawsuit was initially dismissed by U.S. District Court Judge Jane Beckering, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, in April 2024 for a lack of standing, a decision which was then affirmed by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December 2024.

The lawsuit was sponsored by Michigan Fair Elections and the Great Lakes Justice Center and named Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Michigan Director of Elections Jonathan Brater as defendants.

Benson hailed the decision not to take up the case as a “victory for the people of Michigan,” saying the U.S. Supreme Court had correctly upheld the right of Michigan voters to amend the state constitution.

“In recent years, voters in Michigan have overwhelmingly supported ballot initiatives to create a citizen-led independent redistricting process, to guarantee at least nine days of early voting for every statewide election, and to make voting more accessible for every eligible citizen. Today’s action ensures that the will of the voters will stand on these and other issues important to the people of our state,” Benson said.

Proposal 3 of 2018 and Proposal 2 of 2022 both passed with at least 60% of the vote and guaranteed the rights to same-day voter registration, nine days of early voting, absentee voting, among other rights. After voters approved the constitutional amendments, the Legislature passed legislation implementing the measures.

The suit sought not only to halt the changes brought on by the voter-passed initiatives, but also prohibit the future use altogether of citizen-led petition initiatives when they pertain to state election law.

“We also have procedures in place at the state level to amend election law,” state Sen. Jonathan Lindsey (R-Coldwater), one of the 11 lawmakers who filed the suit, said at the time. “However, these processes were violated in 2018 and 2022 when an alternative amendment process was used without regard to federal constitutional requirements. This lawsuit challenges recent attempts to subvert our constitutional process and will protect against such actions in the future.”

The legal argument behind the lawsuit, known as the independent state legislature theory, was mostly rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2023 when it ruled in Moore v Harper.

In that case’s 6-3 majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that there were limits to state legislative power in such matters, effectively repudiating the claim that only state legislatures had the power to make election rules, thus providing state and federal courts, and by extension, state constitutions, a role in that process.

Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.

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