Jane Mayer with the New Yorker reports that one prominent Conservative judge has bravely joined the ongoing legal battles against ultra Right-wing groups who continue to try to push back against and challenge election laws in this country, after the 2020 Big Lie fiasco, in a Supreme Court case that the publication has described as “momentous.”
In December, the Moore v. Harper case is set to go before the controversial United States Supreme Court — a lawsuit that hinges on the so-called “Independent State Legislature Theory” that sees people and groups hoping to treat elections much like abortions are currently treated in the US, leaving state legislatures with the all-encompassing power to decide elections. According to the new reporting, Judge Michael Luttig, who has actually appeared before the January 6th House Select Committee to deliver his testimony in their ongoing investigation into the deadly Capitol attack, is now set to join that case as it prepares to be heard by SCOTUS in the coming weeks.
“The former judge is a surprising co-counsel to Neal Katyal, the well-known Supreme Court litigator,” the New Yorker report reads. “Katyal is a counsel of record in the case for several respondents opposing the far-right groups, including Common Cause and the North Carolina League of Conservation Voters.”
Speaking with the publication, Luttig said that he sees the Moore v. Harper case as “without question the most significant case in the history of our nation for American democracy. Legally, it’s the whole ballgame.”
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“The independent-state-legislature theory was the centerpiece of the former President’s effort to overturn the 2020 election,” he added. “In advising Vice-President Pence on January 6th, I concluded that there was no such doctrine of constitutional interpretation.”
“From that day, I have believed I had an obligation to the country to explain the reasons for that conclusion. Namely, there is literally no support at all in the Constitution,” going on to call the theory, “antithetical to the Framers’ intent, the text, and the Constitution’s fundamental design and architecture.”
Luttig boasts a long-running history with highly-controversial SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas, whose Supreme Court confirmation he personally managed, as well as a relationship with Chief Justice John Roberts, who he worked with during the Reagan administration.
Judge Luttig was personally approached by then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 4, 2021, as then-President Donald Trump continued to pressure Pence to go along with his plan to overthrow the presidential election and remain in power. Pence approached Luttig over Trump’s demands that he challenge the election results by sending the decision back to the state legislatures to make a decision. Luttig advised Pence that the position and process were only ceremonial, and all that he had the power to do was certify the vote.
Read the full report from New Yorker here.
Featured image via screen capture
