Surprise!!
Did anyone think for even a moment that this illegitimate “supreme” court would rule in good faith? This court serves only conservatives and billionaires.
This court is a conservative roach motel. It should be tossed into the deepest part of the garbage.
While listening to the hearing this morning, I was taken by the overall consensus and impartiality of ALL the justices (though Barrett does sound like a child who’s in way over her head). I was surprised most by Jackson’s line of questioning which seemed more opposed to the ballot removal than anyone else.
This isn’t about conservatives - conservatives are the one’s suing to keep him off the ballot. It’s about the Constitution and state rights.
If you’re interested in the actual legality of it all, rather than the “politics”, I would encourage you to keep away from biased media opinions, click/rage-bait headlines, and (it should go without saying) social media. It’s actually an extremely interesting case and this article you are commenting on without reading is a great place to start.
Conservative and liberal justices alike questioned during arguments Thursday whether Trump can be disqualified from being president again
A lot of it appeared super obvious to me over the past few months but the justices and lawyers are bringing up some interesting perspectives I would never have thought of.
Their main concern was whether Congress must act before states can invoke a constitutional provision that was adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office again.
Justice Elena Kagan was among several justices who wanted to know “why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States.”
Chief Justice John Roberts worried that a ruling against Trump would prompt efforts to disqualify other candidates, “and surely some of those will succeed.”
You and I and the internet can argue all we want about whether he should be permitted on every sate ballot (I presume we’re in agreement of the preferred outcome) but, I’ll assume, neither of us are lawyers, state counsels, or constitutional scholars. And it seems that there’s a discussion about ‘being on a ballot’ and ‘being inaugurated as president’ are the same or not. Perhaps he’s on the ballot and wins the election only to find the electors can’t vote for him. Yeah - it’s weird AF.
Kagans reasoning is so fucking stupid. No one has the right to run for president and kicking one person off doesn’t “decide who is president” it means they’re not qualified. If I was 34 and tried to run they would say I’m not qualified…not that the state was deciding I couldn’t be president.
Exactly. Saying that one state doesn’t have the right to make the call is basically saying they can’t enforce constitutionally based rules. If that is the case then everything would have to go to federal court, and the states would have a lot less control over their own electoral process.
Sounds like a win for a conservative stacked judiciary
Well I’d note that technically speaking what they’re saying is NOT that states may not decide who can be elected president but rather that they cannot decide who runs.
One of trumps arguments is that he can run and be elected and appear on the ballot EVEN IF he is not eligible for president. Isn’t that great?
The constitution is very clear about who is eligible to be president.
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Constitutionally, aside from those who don’t qualify, yes everyone does have the right to run for president.
There are a couple arguments regarding “the office” and “an official” and “participated in an insurrection” that may or may not disqualify someone from being federally permitted to “be” president or permitted to be on a state election ballot. States already have different rules to make it onto a ballot. Just in the past couple weeks, Biden wasn’t on the NH primary ballot (he won as a write in).
If all the red states decided they didn’t want Biden on the ballot, they could decide who would be president before the election even took place. To prevent that from happening, it needs to be determined what the rules are and the legal precedent needs to be established for state courts to decide the legal battles.
We all know what happened on January 6th. But there’s a lot of people who want to misrepresent that history. I can’t believe this is the case but it is now reasonable to assume that a state could make up new history and say Biden was a participant in insurrection or guilty of treason and disqualify him from being on the ballot.
If all the red states decided they didn’t want Biden on the ballot, they could decide who would be president before the election even took place.
If a state wanted, it could just decide to let the state legislature pick the electors and not hold a popular vote at all. The US Constitution just says that each state appoints electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” It’s only state laws and state constitutions that create requirements to let the people vote, so a state could repeal those for itself unilaterally.
For example, here’s the relevant section of law in Georgia (OCGA § 21-2-10):
At the November election to be held in the year 1964 and every fourth year thereafter, there shall be elected by the electors of this state persons to be known as electors of President and Vice President of the United States and referred to in this chapter as presidential electors, equal in number to the whole number of senators and representatives to which this state may be entitled in the Congress of the United States.
(“Electors of this state” means the voting public, while “presidential electors” means the people getting nominated to the Electoral College.)
All GA would have to do is repeal that paragraph and then the General Assembly could pick whatever presidential electors they wanted, public preference be damned (at least until the legislators themselves were up for re-election).
If a state wanted, it could just decide to let the state legislature pick the electors and not hold a popular vote at all.
I was surprised this wasn’t raised as a counterargument by the Colorado attorney when the “one state could determine who’s elected” argument was made. (If it was, I missed it.) The justices are worried that states (let’s just say it: “red states”) could make up some frivolous reason to keep someone off the ballot and disqualify them, but the brutal reality is that they could do it already by screwing with the electors. (Hell, Trump and his co-conspirators tried sending fake electors from some states.) Setting a precedent allowing states to use Section 3 of the 14th Amendment just give states another way to accomplish this. “Oh, Biden tripped walking up to a podium? That’s insurrection!”
What’s really sad/outrageous is that Trump and the GOP have so terribly warped and perverted the political norms in this country that we have to even consider the possibility of states fabricating frivolous reasons to keep someone off the ballot. We can’t keep a 91 felon count indicted insurrectionist, fraudster, and rapist from getting elected and destroying democracy because his friends may avenge him by abusing and misapplying the law in the future. This really sucks.
This is a very interesting point.
Congrats on reading part of the applicable sections of the Constitution. Now read the one that actually applies here.
The part about insurrection. It is already clear based on congressional oversight of the executive branch that he is an insurrectionist. That’s what the bi partisan j6 commission determined. There is no need for the courts here at all as nowhere does it say he needs to be convicted.
In fact former uses of this law didn’t require a conviction. There’s already case law supporting that fact.
I understand all that. I believe the issue is how this is handled. Is it up to the states? Is it up to congress? Is it up to the presidential electors? Is it up to the DNC / RNC? Who’s the entity that determines who is and is not on the ballot?
As I think I understand it, the issue at hand is if a state has the authority to unilaterally bar a ‘presidential candidate’ from a ‘general election ballot’ for this reason.
Does the state get to determine on their own that the candidate is illegible? What is it in the state’s constitution that says so? Shouldn’t such a fact be established on a federal level to prevent the candidate from appearing on all ballots? These things aren’t clear in the constitution.
illegible
The word you’re looking for is ineligible.
Noticed this in your other comment and thought it was a typo but now you’ve forced my hand lol. Illegible means not legible, as in scrawled handwriting or bad print that is too sloppy to read.
If all the red states decided they didn’t want Biden on the ballot, they could decide who would be president before the election even took place. To prevent that from happening, it needs to be determined what the rules are and the legal precedent needs to be established for state courts to decide the legal battles.
This would require the state courts to all agree and then the Supreme Court to concur. Colorado isn’t getting the final word on who can be president, they’re dutifully interpreting the Constitution, making a ruling, and then letting the highest court in the land review it. It’s like the Maine case writ large, it needs to start somewhere, but just because that case started with a single person making a decision doesn’t mean that’s the whole process or that the process itself is illegitimate. There’s nothing unilateral about this, but the Supreme Court sounds like it wants to dodge responsibility for deciding whether Colorado is right or not by questioning whether they should have even been able to start the process.
Saying “Congress could just do the thing the plaintiff wants” is their tried and true dodge for things they know quite well can’t or won’t be done by Congress. They’re quite happy to implement law without Congress’s help when it’s something they want and quite happy to pretend they’re just deferring responsibility when it’s something they don’t.
I’m reiterating the argument(s) laid out in the hearing. I believe it was Justice Jackson who presented this hypothetical.
Hey, just chiming because we might both get downvoted to hell for this. After reading your comments i have altered my mindset on this somewhat and i agree that this is a presedent you dont want to go over easily. Its a knife that cuts both ways an can be used to cut you, once both parties see its possible. It would also be a funny moment when people vote for a canidate in their state, only for their spokesperson to not be able to vote for said canidate, making him, or her, not the president.
Whatever happens, the power hungry of all sides need to follow the rules, and just like everything about trump is a fucking presedent that we need to analyse and handle very carefully…
Agreed on the careful handling. With how partisan so many issues have been in the past few years, I can see this opening the door to more significant incidents in the future. Not to go “tin-foil-hat-civil-war,” but I can see an example of Massachusetts, New York, and California doing XYZ while Texas, Georgia, and Florida have done ZYX that’ll just add fuel to the fire.
Look at the diversity of states’ positions after the overturn of Roe v Wade. It has eerily similar vibes as free and slave states did 160+ years ago. Ugh, at this point, it’s time for me to meditate and read a book or something to relax.
when people vote for a canidate in their state, only for their spokesperson to not be able to vote for said canidate, making him, or her, not the president.
Bingo.
Not arguing anything other than that the aftermath of him being on the ballot, winning, and then being told he can’t take office would shatter this country
would shatter this country
Having laws not matter would do the same thing.
I fully agree, but if the implementation of the penalties to breaking a law are structured in such a way that the damage caused by not enforcing them is equal to or less than enforcing them then we’ve already lost. Even if it weren’t Trump if a candidate is allowed on the ballot and can’t legally win what is the recourse after the election? Was there any choice at all? Do we do a flash election?
I’m seriously asking because if that’s the case I don’t see anything resembling a decent future for anyone under any of the remaining options besides democrat and Biden landslide precident changing election
Imagine the uncertainty the Biden campaign could spread (they won’t because they are bad at their jobs). The American public would be so frustrated with any ruling that did not address how the ammendment should be applied.
There should be a ruling on what constitutes an insurrection, but this trial is not about that.
And I think that a ruling on that is a long way off.
Well, one argument is that the clause is self serving and Trump does not need to be found guilty of a crime to be disqualified. Another (ridiculous, imo) argument is if the person holding the office of the presidency is an official.
We don’t need that. We have federal definitions for insurrection, and participants on Jan 6 have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. It was a violent act to interfere with the constitutional transfer of power after a legitimate election. That’s insurrection, and Trump supported them. None of those facts are in dispute.
Justice Elena Kagan was among several justices who wanted to know “why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States.”
A single state didn’t decide who gets to be President. A single state decided who qualifies to appear on their ballots under state law, as all states are entitled to do.
Chief Justice John Roberts worried that a ruling against Trump would prompt efforts to disqualify other candidates, “and surely some of those will succeed.”
Bad faith slippery slope argument. Colorado passed a law and took the case to court where the State Supreme Court made a ruling. If there’s another state where the State Supreme Court has both the authority and the audacity to disqualify a candidate for partisan reasons, those justices should be charged with treason against America.
Then should a small federal subcommittee screen all candidates on the state’s behalf before they’re placed on the ballot?
I think finding ourselves in the position where a candidate won the popular vote but the electors are unable to vote for him, that would be a blunder as a country at best, cause an uprising among all the disenfranchised voters at worst.
Also one of their arguments that you left out is whether or not the POTUS is an officer of the United States… Which I think is an obvious YES! He is the commanding officer of the military, and as a veteran, I was trained that the POTUS was an officer.
Let’s burn this mother down, pookie!
I wonder who else decided that rioting was a good response to not getting your way….
Hmmm….
It’s also not only too conservative, it’s too religious.
Illegitimate is exactly right.
In what warped reality is the President of the United States not “an officer of the US”? The amendment was literally made for this exact situation.
It makes less than zero sense that the drafters and ratifiers of the amendment meant to leave the highest office in the nation out of the purview of the amendment. Absolute horseshit.
Pretty disappointing to see the comments from some of the more liberal justices…
Not only is what you’re saying obviously correct, but THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED IN THE FUCKING AMENDMENT was asked about this exact lack of the word “president”, and pointed to the officer line, and said that clearly included the president.
It’s also worth noting that there was just a single reference in the Senate debate to the fact that the president and vice president were not explicitly mentioned in Howard’s draft as “officer(s) of the United States,” the way members of Congress and state officials had been itemized in the text. Would the disqualification clause of the amendment not cover the top posts in the executive branch?
“Why did you omit to exclude them?” asked Maryland Democratic Sen. Reverdy Johnson.
Maine’s Lot Morrill jumped in to clarify.
“Let me call the Senator’s attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,’” Morrill said, ending the discussion on that point.
presidential office is both, its listed twice
It sounds to me like they are going to weasel out of it by saying the Colorado Supreme Court doesn’t have the authority to make that decision for everyone.
Which they didn’t.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump is disqualified and cannot appear on the Colorado ballots. The Colorado Supreme Court does have that authority, because the Colorado state legislature gave it to them and nothing in federal law says they don’t. Colorado had previously disqualified another candidate, and the judge who determined they could was Neil Gorsuch.
There is no question as to whether the President is an officer of the United States. There is no question as to whether his oath to uphold and defend the constitution is also an oath to support the constitution. There is no question as to whether the actions on January 6th were an insurrection, as several participants have already been convicted of seditious conspiracy. There is no question as to whether Trump supported them, because he live tweeted his support to the world in real time. There is no question as to whether Trump needs to be convicted, because the amendment never mentions conviction, and none of the other people previously disqualified under this amendment from office were convicted of anything.
None of these arguments holds even the faintest hint of water. They are bad faith arguments made by political hacks with a predetermined agenda to support Trump. The court is illegitimate, and we have no functional justice system.
None of these arguments holds even the faintest hint of water.
And guess how much they care for this? They are not neutral, they don’t follow the law, they just “interpret” it to follow their political agenda. Just compare their deposits and transcripts before they were voted into the office, and their deeds afterwards. The three judges called by Trump are a disgrace to the office if there ever was one.
Just the notion that people label them as “conservative” or “republican” judges shows that they are lacking keys requirement for the job: objectivity and neutrality.
Colorado had previously disqualified another candidate.
Who was the other candidate? My understanding is that this case is unique in that it pertains to the President. The President is the only official elected by all Americans so this is what separates them from other officials, congressional candidates, presidential electors, etc. If someone is running for president, they should be accessible to vote for by all Americans.
If someone is illegible for President, is it proper for individual states to make the determination to keep them off the ballot? Or should it be a decision made by congress, SCOTUS, the presidential electors, or the political party? This part isn’t mentioned in the constitution. And uhhh, as we know, the constitution says whatever isn’t in the constitution is left to the states. Still, that’s a tricky corner to be stuck in when you’re talking about 50 states voting for President.
It was indeed a presidential candidate. Hassan v Colorado, 2012.
… as the magistrate judge’s opinion makes clear and we expressly reaffirm here, a state’s legitimate interest in protecting the integrity and practical functioning of the political process permits it to exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office. See generally Munro v. Socialist Workers Party, 479 U.S. 189, 193-95 (1986); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 145 (1972).
Also, you’ve got a typo. Ineligible. Illegible means something written so poorly that it cannot be understood.
To be fair, Donald Trump transcripts are also illegible
They could be taking an absurdly and ultimately pointless stance that primaries aren’t covered by the constitution and his presence is meaningless on the ballot of a private group. It would allow Trump on the primary ballot and still give the option for blocking him in the general election, or more likely the electors ballot.
They could go so far as to say being elected is fine, but he would be disqualified from taking the oath and becoming president, so in a Trump victory the vice president is the real winner.
While you’re correct, SCOTUS will most likely rule on the basis of this being “too politicized” and write some vague motions to support it. “Officer of the US” is just one of the many avenues they can take. It’s not the first time they’ve skirted controversial rulings this way.
Tbf it’s also worked in reverse to uphold lower court rulings affirming civil rights, etc in the past too. Right or wrong, it’s a “how the sausage is made” moment for the Judiciary Branch.
To be clear: I personally believe not upholding the Colorado/Maine, etc rulings to be a failure of our systems of checks and balances. Just pointing out the mechanism behind the court’s choices.
In what warped reality is the President of the United States not “an officer of the US”?
The one where POTUS is the only “officer” not mentioned in section 3 of the 14th amendment. This was brought up in the case today at 1:57:10 https://www.youtube.com/live/6VpJKUscNaM?si=r1DuX5F82so1XaTB&t=7032
Justice Jackson asks,
Then why didn’t they put the word President in the very enumerated list in section 3? They were listing people that were barred and president is not there.
Murray (representing Colorado Voters) answered this referring to the debates in congress that occurred over section 3.
Johnson said why haven’t you included president in the language? Moore responds, we have. Look at the language any office under the United States…
Jackson cuts in,
doesn’t that at least suggest ambiguity?
This part was very satisfying to hear…
Murray goes on to argue (1:59:03) that those listed in the section three (presidential electors and senators and representatives) do not hold offices while the constitution does say the presidency does hold an office (though he didn’t indicate where is says this).
Jackson moves on from this after saying she appreciated the argument.
I felt this was a very important and convincing exchange. So, fingers crossed.
Reference https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/section-3/
Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
So that would mean insurrection would be legal in America. If Biden loses to Trump, I will feel empowered to riot in the same way. Time to get a gun I guess.
Anything resembling a more left leaning insurrection will get a very different response than the last one. You will be murdered by the state on the spot. The feds bombed a civilian neighborhood in the 80s for less than that.
The feds bombed a civilian neighborhood in the 80s
They didn’t bomb a neighborhood…
They flattened an entire block.
This is why we take the “peaceful protest” straight to the supreme Court where the real seat of conservative political power lies.
This is why we take the “peaceful protest” straight to the supreme Court where the real seat of conservative political power lies.
Better get on it or you will be out of time.
I think it’s the judges who should be worried about “running out of time”
I mean, BLM had the space in front of the Supreme Court pretty much blocked off when they decided to march on it. When the patriot prayer event happened, that was 10k plus people descending on the Supreme Court.
I simply do not see that happening.
Let me spell it out for you - January 6th the supreme Court but actually get it done.
Rules for thee
Questions of Legality aren’t being heard here. This is only about eligibility for being on a presidential ballot and the ability of an individual state to determine eligibility and remove the candidate from the ballot.
No. The questions posed by the Supreme Court centered around whether there was merit in allowing any single state, which may have arbitrary criteria and or processes, to effectively eliminate a candidate from the ballot, and if so, under what constraints. Ours a valid question. Where is the line? If you allow this precedent, how might it be abused by others?
States rights only matter when it oppresses women, not when it’s constitutionally legal and valid!
It’s not allowing a single court to decide, the Supreme Court of the land is be reviewing that decision right now. They’re not just going to do that on their own. It has to start somewhere.
It may mean that someone found guilty of insurrection may not be voted by state electors to be president.
You’re now on a list.
“Supreme court seems poised to reject efforts to kick insurrectionist Donald Trump off the ballot over the January 6th insurrection, despite the law saying no insurrectionists can be on the ballot”
Funny how no one claims states rights here.
That only seems to be a Republican talking point.
Because it is not a state’s right to interpret the Constitution as they see fit.
Colorado isn’t interpreting it, merely following it. He’s been found guilty in a Colorado Court for a crime that disqualifies him to appear on the ballot of that state.
To argue otherwise is to argue that states can’t remove teenagers from the ballot even though they’re too young to hold office.
“top constitutional court ready to rule entire constitutional amendment unconstitutional”
wouldn’t be the first time. the 9th in particular seems to mystify our corporate evangelicals in the court.
as is half the second. it’s wild, there isn’t even a punctuation mark between the part that just doesn’t count for anything and the part that’s incontrovertible word of God
This is why voting matters. The SCOTUS is basically an apparatus of the conservatives now, and will be for most of the rest of our lives.
I agree with everything here other than “This”.
This case has been brought to the Supreme Court by of the Colorado republicans who wanted Trump off the ballot.
If you had read the first sentence of the article, you’d see that most of the judges are in agreement.
with conservative and liberal justices in apparent agreement in a case that puts them at the heart of a presidential election.
I do not understand the US judiciary nullifying a portion of the “sacred” constitution. Seems like the beginning of the end, to an outside observer. Thanks for all the fish!!
No, no, don’t worry, the Supreme Court ruling that the plain language of the Constitution must be interpreted in ever-narrower ways (except when it helps the right-wing) is totally not troubling at all.
No way man, this is the middle of the end. The beginning of the end was when they introduced legal bribery after dumbing down the general populace for a couple decades.
Can we just get to the end? I’m tired of all this.
Bye, bye 14th Amendment.
Bye bye all amendments.
“Freedom of speech means you can express opinions in your own property, not anywhere in public. And if you rent, that’s not your property.” - SCOTUS 2025
“Freedom of speech on your own property only means you can say what you want inside your home where no one else can hear you” - SCOTUS 2026
“We are listening always.” SCOTUS 2027
“We can read your mind thanks to our mandatory brain implants” - SCOTUS 2028
Free speech zones are already a thing that’s perfectly legal. It’s often used to hide unwanted protestors.
States that believe he should not be on the ballot should keep him off the ballot regardless of what the Supreme Court says. Fuck them and their corrupt shit.
That’s what Republicans in Texas are doing on the border.
Scotus has clearly demonstrated that it is no longer a legitimate institution. It’s be fine with both sides ignoring them until they can demonstrate that they’ve cleaned house.
Yeah, I don’t know why liberals get so uncomfortable with the Supreme Court being ignored. It’s well and truly corrupt and the institution isn’t going to be reformed through just sticking to the process anytime soon. You can dutifully give them absolute power to decide law whenever they feel like it or you can remind them that they need legitimacy to function. Questioning their legitimacy is a good thing. The Court is political and needs to be treated as a political entity.
The problem being, that will give him the ammo to say the election is rigged. Which is going to happen already. So now, it will give them the ammo to say it’s true.
He’s gonna say that anyway
But he will have evidence to support his claims
Lol no. He doesn’t. He’s not qualified. Period. There’s tons of evidence.
There is nothing I said that even insinuated that he was qualified. I am simply stating it will give him the evidence he needs to say it was fraud.
SCOTUS rules that they can overturn amendments.
SCOTUS rules it can choose the next president.
SCOTUS rules it can execute people without a trial.
Any bets on where Clarence Thomas will get to spend his next luxury vacation?
Definitely not Colorado
Tldr:
Their excuse is he wasn’t personally there.
So it’s not saying an insurrection is ok, they’re saying trump hasn’t been proven to have participated yet.
Which is why not holding presidents accountable while in office is bullshit. This shit takes so long thru the courts, a lot can change.
We can’t take a decade to prosecute an insurrection
Except it’s been proven by the courts already.
I mean, yeah it’s disappointing but hopefully a legal case can prove he in incited an insurrection and then states can remove him from the ballot. Then the SCOTUS would have to quite literally just nullify a a part of the Constitution, which would be… not out of the realm of possibilities at this point
The legal case in Colorado already determined he met the definitions of insurrection as known by the authors of the 14th.
Based on a summary of their questions and statements, I suspect SCOTUS will rule that only via a procedure defined by Congress can someone be determined to be ineligible for the Presidency based on the 14th. And only at the federal level.
There was such a procedure defined by law following the Civil War but it was revoked by Congress in the 1940s.
I mean, yeah it’s disappointing but hopefully a legal case can prove he in incited an insurrection and then states can remove him from the ballot.
“Trial was too close to an election. Political. Overruled.”
Fast forward to 2025: Defendant Donald Trump in the Insurrection Case given a Presidential Pardon by President Donald Trump. Matter settled.
Bruh, it’s already been proven he’s an insurrectionist by the courts. Gotta love how SCOTUS thinks it can overrule an amendment.
I wouldn’t count this as over just yet. it makes sense that the judges would reserve their harshest questioning for the side that feels they must upend an election. Even the Liberal justices were wary of that.
They spent very little time on the topic of whether Trump was engaged in insurrection. To me, that means their minds are made up on that, one way or the other. You would think if they were going to let him off the hook based on that, though, they would ask more questions.
I think they will rule that individual states can’t use the amendment to keep candidates off of primary ballots. That much is clear. I wonder if they rule that Trump must remain on the ballot, but cannot serve if he wins – unless waived by Congress. It would make the discussion of Trump’s VP much more interesting.
I hope you’re correct in your analysis.
To me the argument was leaning more into the idea that it would be a violation of Stinky’s rights to prevent him from being in the ballot. I think it’s nuts to say, allow a traitor to run and be elected, then they can attempt to have their disability removed by Congress.
If they rule to overturn Colorado’s decision, they will have essentially nullified section 3.
I don’t think the reconstructionists ever imagined that a large number of people would look at someone who pointed a cannon at the Constitution and say that person should definitely hold office. If section 3 is not self-executing I struggle to see how it could be effectively used in any scenario.
To me the argument was leaning more into the idea that it would be a violation of Stinky’s rights to prevent him from being in the ballot.
Which is an absolute horseshit argument. Is it a violation of the rights of a 33 year old person to say he’s constitutionally ineligible to be President?
No, because that’s literally one of the conditions for office the Constitution requires.
There is no due process violation because there’s no process at all- if you try to overthrow the government that is a prima facie disqualifier for being President. You don’t have to be convicted, the same way you don’t get convicted of being under 35 or convicted of not spending 14 years in the US.
To say otherwise means there’s a lot of dead Confederates the US government owes an apology to.
The main shortcoming of that is that it’s easily definable and determinable that someone is under 35yrs old, or hasn’t lived in the US for 14yrs.
But the definition of participation in insurrection is a little more loosy-goosy, and then you have to be (legally speaking) explicit in what constitutes proof that a potential candidate has participated in such an insurrection. Otherwise it will devolve into anyone accusing the candidates they don’t like of having participated in attempted insurrection.
To be clear, I’m not advocating that Trump should be allowed on the ballot or to be president, because he absolutely shouldn’t. I’m just pointing out that it’s not as simple as saying a candidate is younger than 35.
Yes, you’re absolutely correct.
But Colorado already decided that. The court found, as a matter of fact and using previous judicial case law, that Trump does meet all of the requirements necessary for disqualification under the 14th. It’s not just a single person choosing to keep Trump off the ballot.
Besides that, we literally have
- video of Trump telling his mob that they have to fight like hell.
- video of Trump telling them they’re gonna lose their country.
- video of Trump telling them to go to the Capitol.
- sworn testimony that he tried to go too while the riot was already happening and was only stopped because the Secret Service refused to take him.
- knowledge of what his supporters did after they heard him speak (read: what they believed he was telling them to do.)
I think they will rule that individual states can’t use the amendment to keep candidates off of primary ballots. That much is clear.
But the challenge isn’t that he’s not eligible to run in the primary. The challenge is that he’s not eligible to run for President. So if they rule that he isn’t, and they do it quickly, states will have to leave him off the ballot in September(ish) when early ballots are printed.
I wonder if they rule that Trump must remain on the ballot, but cannot serve if he wins – unless waived by Congress.
If he’s eligible to be on the ballot, he’s eligible to run for President. There’s no mechanism where SCOTUS can say “yes you can run, but we say you can’t be sworn in.” Their only opening is on the eligibility question, which is a simple yes or no.
Their only opening is on the eligibility question, which is a simple yes or no.
It can’t be a simple yes or no, though, because the eligibility restriction can be waived. And the amendment says “No person shall … hold any office”, which says nothing about running for office. There’s nothing that says that waiver has to come before declaring any candidacy.
I would not put it past them to say something like “He is currently ineligible. If he runs anyway, then Congress can wait to decide to waive it until after the election”. Kicking the can as far down the road as possible, in the hopes that Trump loses and none of this is necessary.
The nuance you’re missing is that Congress by 2/3rds majority can vote to essentially nullify ineligibility part of the 14th amendment. So he could theoretically get elected and Congress could vote that he could still serve despite leading an insurrection.
Would Congress ever vote on that? Not a chance. But it still leaves open eligibility, which is the issue. If he could be eligible to be president, can he really be kept off the ballot?
There is a near 0 chance SCOTUS will rule beyond what is in front of them. And in this case that is the question if the states have the right to keep candidates off the ballots for the federal election based on article 14 section 3 as this is the justification that was chosen by colorado.
The subjects that will not be touched in this case:
- what defines an insurrection?
- what does it mean to “engage in” an insurrection?
- did trump meet the above requirements?
It is an interesting question, as this asks if the states have the right to determine the answers to the 3 questions above for themselves.
And this is what the main questions today seemed to be about. Because a "yes, states can define this themselves’ would lead to potentially different answers based on the states… and that seems to be an undesired outcome.
The probable outcome is “no states cannot decide” I doubt they will even a sweet “if not states then who” but probably congress. But then…if congress decides… why can they decide to overrule with 2/3 majority?
And how would this then have worked during the post civil war era? As I said… interesting… I’m curious how SCOTUS will answer… especially the motivation.
And this also allows the conservative judges to leave the 3 questions unanswered for another day…
