North Carolina Republicans requested justices issue ruling following dispute over electoral maps

The US supreme court shot down a fringe legal theory that observers said posed a considerable threat to democracy, ruling that state courts have the authority to weigh in on disputes over federal election rules.

“When state legislatures prescribe the rules concerning federal elections, they remain subject to the ordinary exercise of state judicial review,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. “Our precedents have long rejected the view that legislative action under the Elections Clause is purely federal in character, governed only by restraints found in the Federal Constitution.”