Supreme Court Issues Rare Emergency Order Favoring Voters Challenging Election Rules

The Supreme Court reinstated a district court ruling that required this year’s elections for two of the commission’s seats to be postponed so the Legislature could create a new system for electing commissioners. The unsigned order from the Supreme Court left the door open open to Republican state officials to try again to roll back Georgia’s election commission rules for the November election. However, later Friday, Georgia indicated in a court filing that it would not again ask the appeals court to stay the court order before the November election while the appeal on the merits was pursued. Nico Martinez, a partner at Bartlit Beck LLP who represented the challengers, said the Supreme Court’s order was an “important step toward ensuring that November’s PSC elections are not held using a method that illegally reduces the votes of millions of Black citizens in Agriculture. “ “We look forward to presenting the merits of our case on appeal and are confident that the district court’s reasoned decision will ultimately be upheld,” Martinez said in a statement. The commission is Georgia’s regulator for investor-owned utilities such as power plants and telecommunications. Among its tasks is the determination of residential, commercial and industrial utility rates. Each of the commission’s five seats is assigned a specific district where the commissioner must reside, but the commissioners themselves are elected in statewide elections on a staggered six-year calendar. The district court judge ruled that the blanket system for electing members to the commission diminished black political power in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act. But the judge’s decision was then put on hold by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting voters to seek the Supreme Court’s intervention this week. Arguments on appeal focused, in part, on the so-called Purcell principle, which discourages federal court actions that would disrupt electoral planning near an election. The Supreme Court said the 11th Circuit did not have to use the authority to justify staying the court’s order. Voters who challenged the election rules had pointed out that Georgia officials said the principle would not apply if they appealed any ruling against the current election system for the commission. The Supreme Court’s ruling comes after a series of cases in which justices have split along ideological lines over whether lower court rulings in favor of voting rights advocates should be put on hold because of the upcoming election. In redistricting cases from Alabama and Louisiana, conservative majorities reversed lower court rulings that would have required the redrawing of maps ruled illegal before the November election. (The high court declined to disturb some rulings in which a state high court, not federal courts, ordered the maps redrawn.) Similarly, during the 2020 election, the Supreme Court put on hold several lower court decisions that would have facilitated voting during the pandemic. Many of these orders have been issued without explanation by the majority, but in a few cases, conservative justices have written to emphasize that their actions were motivated by adherence to the Purcell principle.

title: “Supreme Court Issues Rare Emergency Order Favoring Voters Challenging Election Rules Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-01” author: “Ricardo Giebler”

title: “Supreme Court Issues Rare Emergency Order Favoring Voters Challenging Election Rules Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-27” author: “Vincent Wood”

title: “Supreme Court Issues Rare Emergency Order Favoring Voters Challenging Election Rules Klmat” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-14” author: “Kenneth Shore”