NC Supreme Court Reversals Shake Up Voting Rights Cases.

North Carolina's highest court has overruled its earlier decision in a congressional redistricting lawsuit, throwing into question the case's status at the U.S. Supreme Court and whether that court's justices will rule on a contentious elections issue. The majority of the state court said that there is "no judicially manageable standard by which to adjudicate partisan gerrymandering claims" and courts "are not intended to meddle in policy matters." The lawsuit centers on a once-fringe, widely disputed idea — called the "independent state legislature theory" — that claims that under the U.S. Constitution, state legislatures have a special power to determine how federal elections are conducted without any checks or balances from state constitutions or state courts.