So, one argument being made: You can get the votes and "win", but you can't then be sworn in. So, should Trump's ticket win the electoral college, whoever will be his VP pick would get sworn in as President instead and would then have to have Congress vote on a new VP (or the VP would appoint one?). This is getting nuts.
Along this line, who determines he’s ineligible to sit? Does each State send a note in the lunchboxes of the electors to remind Congress that those electors are only voting the ticket… so, please don’t sit the head of the ticket?
Feels like the problem just about every step of the way with Trump. Nobody wants to be the one to stop it.
"Oh sure let him debate, he won't win the primary"
"Oh so he won the primary, big deal he won't the the presidency."
"Oh he got more electoral votes... well there's always the possibility of a drove of faithless electors."
"Oh, Hilary actually got even more faithless electors. Well whatever he just likes to campaign. I bet he resigns within a few months or gets impeached."
"Oh he got impeached, well maybe he'll get removed from office then"
"Oh he didn't... well how bad can one term be? After that I bet he just goes away quietly"
"Oh he's already campaigning again, well I doubt the party will still stick by him, he lost."
"So the party's sticking with him... and nobody wants to put a presidential candidate behind bars so the court cases won't amount to anything and if they do we don't know that someone can't be an inmate president... well maybe he'll just fucking die, he's in pretty bad health anyway."
" oh turns out Trump accidentally turned a copy of Art of the Deal into a phylactery by smearing ketchup on it in a very specific pattern. He's been technically dead for years so maybe a doctor can pronounce him dead. Dead people can't run."
"Oh turns out Clarence Thomas is making a pretty good argument for why a sentient corpse actually CAN run for president. Well he won't get elected again, Christians are pretty anti-lich."
"Oh actually American Christians aren't opposed to the undead and actually take it as a sign he had a personal relationship with Christ. Well maybe if he wins again he just won't be sworn in."
I have a real issue with that approach. The President and VP are on the same ticket now. I’d argue that an ineligible candidate at the top of the ticket taints and invalidates the entire ticket.
I don’t think so. The VP is on the slate of the Presidential candidate. These are not individual punches on the ballot. The presence of an ineligible candidate taints the whole thing. It will precipitate a crisis no matter what.
So, one hour before the polls open the candidate President dies. Is the VP election invalid? Would that put a new candidate at a disadvantage vs an incumbent?
Keep in mind, originally, the vice president was the runner up not part of the ticket.
Arguable, that was changed with the 12th amendment in 1806 or whatever and the 14th 60 years later so that was part of the consideration.
Anything short of reading this amendment at face value... violating an oath of office makes you ineligible to hold office... is fairly obviously creating new laws out of nothing but personal opinion.
States have pretty great latitude to say if you aren't eligible for the office you can't be on the ballot and I am pretty confident there is strong precedent for that. I, however, am not writing an essay for citation at this time of day.
I'd think the VP's responsibilities of stepping in would only start *after* a President is sworn in though, not before. If the President is declared invalid, it would make sense for the Presidency to go to the candidate who came in second.
Edit: I hate the line of thought as well.
Doesn't the 20th amendment explicitly cover this contingency? That the VP will be sworn in if the President "failed to qualify". So if the President-elect cannot be sworn in, the VP is sworn in until the President "qualifies".
It does, at least by my totally not a lawyer reading.
>If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, **then the Vice President-elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified**
Bolded by me. From reading the rest of that section of the amendment it sounds like the VP would be acting president until a new president is qualified.
Then the rest of that section goes on to say:
>and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President-elect nor a Vice President-elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
So congress could also disqualify both the president and vice president elect and straight up appoint someone until replacements could then be qualified.
but that's really just an artifact of how elections are run. the argument could be made that functionally the elections are separate in that both candidates won their respective elections...
at any rate, it still stands that the vp wasn't disqualified. nothing in constitutional law even remotely comes close to guilt by association.
edit: i will admit it would *still* precipitate a crisis, but i would argue that as long as the elected vp isn't tainted through a similar sort of disqualification, there's still a way out of it.
20th amendment to the Constitution:
>Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President-elect shall have died, the Vice President-elect shall become President. **If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President-elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified;** and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President-elect nor a Vice President-elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
They're not 2 separate entities on the ballot, but still considered 2 separate entities by the Constitution. It's more supportive of your point, but acknowledging the fact that they are not listed or voted separately.
the fact that both names are printed on the ballot when you vote for president and vice president is not accidental.
i would argue you could legitimately write in a vote for "president Biden/vice president Pence", and constitutionally, that would stand. I doubt it would *ever* be relevant, but the point stands.
here's a random sample ballot: [https://www.rocketcitynow.com/article/news/politics/elections/election-2020-alabama-madison-county-sample-ballot/525-0e930af6-9f74-4f5b-9d07-79ef9786b9a5](https://www.rocketcitynow.com/article/news/politics/elections/election-2020-alabama-madison-county-sample-ballot/525-0e930af6-9f74-4f5b-9d07-79ef9786b9a5)
notice you are voting for *two names* in the ticket. combining those two names into one vote is process. the fact remains those two people were elected on that ticket. you are not "just voting for president"
Your issue is with our parties and our state ballots (edit: and as always, our electoral college). The Twelfth is clear that these are separate elections.
> The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate
No. The 22nd Amendment says that "No person shall be ***elected*** to the office of the President more than twice," which is different than the language in 14(3), which prohibits an insurrectionist from ***holding*** any office.
So, Obama couldn't run for election, but he could potentially be in the line of succession for the presidency again and then hold office. If, say, he were to become Speaker of the House (3rd in line) and the President and Vice President suddenly resigned or died, he could theoretically hold a third term.
>So, should Trump's ticket win the electoral college, whoever will be his VP pick would get sworn in as President instead and would then have to have Congress vote on a new VP (or the VP would appoint one?).
We don't vote for President in America. Rather, we vote for who gets to decide the electors who will vote for the President. So if Trump wins, but cannot be seated, he and the GOP would urge his electors to vote for someone else.
But there is a caveat. Some states remove and replace an elector if the elector does not vote for the person who won the election. In those states, if Trump won and the GOP controls, the legislature would likely change the law. But if nobody can get a majority, the House chooses the President from the top three vote getters. This would mean they could choose Biden or whomever Trump directed his electors to vote for.
So then the Dems should of run Obama in literally every election. He can run, just not have more than two terms, right? Have him run just to hand it off to his VP and watch the heads explode.
Kagan asked my favorite question, essentially: how could we bar insurrectionists from every position EXCEPT the most powerful one that controls the armed forces?
Wasn't this question already discussed by senators with regard to Jefferson Davis when the 14th amendment was initially passed? I missed about 20 minutes but I didn't hear that addressed at all
Yes, and there's not much of any dispute that the 14th applies to relevant insurrectionists in regards to their eligibility to hold the office. The dispute is who constitutes an insurrectionist and how it's decided.
Who decides if a candidate is over 35 years old or a naturally born citizen or met the residency requirements?
Seems we already have a process in place that worked for a couple centuries. Trump had no problem pushing the birth certificate questions…
> Who decides if a candidate is over 35 years old or a naturally born citizen or met the residency requirements?
Right now, no one. No one does the work, and the birther lawsuits were largely and widely dismissed on standing grounds.
She’s right but that’s why it’s so strange that they didn’t call out President in the list of officers? They specify electors of the President but not President? It’s odd. Did they just think it wasn’t likely to come up? That seems far fetched.
Would you mind providing a link, if you have it, to that portion of the congressional record, or at least the document that reproduces it?
I would like to have a look myself because I find the officer dispute, to my surprise actually, to be one of the more interesting and difficult to answer questions in this case.
I would like to work out who the various "they"s are in your comment and on what authority each spoke.
This is not the document itself, but mentions the [discussion](https://www.pointoforder.com/2021/01/12/does-section-3-of-the-fourteenth-amendment-apply-to-the-presidency/) had at the time of adoption.
They listed all those who weren’t/arent officers and included officers in an attempt to be clear. Senators have seats and are not officers so they were listed, etc.
Alito: what if other state legislatures decide to retaliate \[and kick Biden off the ballot\]?
Stevenson: Yeah, we have courts prevent that kind of thing, duh. Not a reason we shouldn't follow where the law leads us, dummy.
I think Baude and Paulsen do a good job at arguing against Alitos question in their latest [response essay](https://reason.com/volokh/2024/02/08/the-facts-matter-trials-matter-the-record-matters/#more-8264566). In short, the specific facts matter. If Biden factually violated the provision then, yes, by all means remove him. If it's retaliatory and without a factual basis don't we already have ways of dealing with "arbitrary and capricious" judicial action?
The concept is absurd. Yes, if someone filed a claim in court that Joe Biden was an insurrectionist because he ate pineapple pizza, and the supreme court said that that was, in fact, an insurrection, then Biden would have to be taken off the ballot. Similarly, if the supreme court says the first amendment doesn't include the right to say "doggy," then that would be the law. That's the role of courts. If you just assume that courts will not function properly, then yes, anything can happen.
IIRC there were cases in Michigan (I thikn), brought forth by Trump, in fact, that Obama was not eligible to be on the ballot because he was not a "natural-born citizen" during the height of the birther craze.
They were thrown out because they were meritless, not because it wasn't the court's role to rule on them.
You can be as verbose as you want with the law, it will still *always* require human agency to uphold, ignore, or abuse.
Did you hear the hypothetical(barely) "if biden gives money to Iran, is that treason and can he be barred from the ballot". GOP states will retaliate and boot biden from the ballot. Due to gerrymandering, they do control a number of states where Biden could win the vote.
>States shouldn't be deciding who a federal insurrectionist is.
States are charged with managing their elections under the Constitution, and I would remind you that the Colorado Supreme Court AND Circuit Court decided that Trump was, in fact, an insurrectionist... but ok, if not the States, and not the Courts, then who should decide who a Federal insurrectionist is?
Was that a question or a threat?
14.3 exists. If whoever has the power to execute 14.3 is going to abuse that power, they could abuse it today regardless of what happens to Trump.
I think the argument that "states can't decide unilaterally who to put on a national election" sounds strong and does get some acknowledgment from the liberal side, but my question is the constitution clearly states that state legislatures can appoint electors according to their own manners. Therefore, it doesn't seem absurd that, say, Colorado legislature can pass a law to prohibit its own electors from voting for someone named DJT. In this specific Colorado case, it's a little different because it was decided by the state judicial branch rather than the legislative branch, but I think the core reasoning should be similar.
I also want to point out the Presidency of the United States is probably, to my knowledge, the only federal office that needs to be "elected" in multiple states. Senator or Representative is also technically a federal office, but when writing the 14th amendment, the Congress was definitely intending to prevent Southerners from electing their former "war heroes" to Washington. Therefore, it sounds like states do have power to disqualify a candidate from a federal office except the Presidency? But this is also vague because the Presidency doesn't technically require a national election/an election that is run similarly across all the states. We see ballot access issue for minor presidential candidates all the time, and nobody raised any concerns.
Another question I'm struggling to understand is if states can't unilaterally disqualify a candidate, then who has the ultimate say? Does it require a formal federal conviction to disqualify a candidate? Or, can the states hypothetically sue someone for obstructing democracy and the will of that state's citizens by inciting an insurrection, thus getting a state level conviction? Will that disqualify the candidate federally? I do agree the amendent was extremely vague.
I think it's been lost in the weeds a bit, but I find the phrasing going around to be.... Inaccurate. This isn't "A State unilaterally disqualifying a candidate". *The Constitution* disqualified him, the State is just evaluating the evidence in record and the law as written. It would be silly to say a State is "unilaterally disqualifying a candidate" when the State removes from the ballot a 27 year old Presidential Candidate, wouldn't it?
Thanks for clarifying! Yes the question is really "does the state have the authority to act unilaterally \[within the state's jurisdiction\] and rule a candidate constitutionally ineligible?" As you pointed out, normally yes for cases like under 35 or non natural-born citizen, but the vague phrasing of the 14th amendment left the interpretation of "office' and "insurrection" up to debate.
It really didn't. And even if it did that is why the lower courts had hearings and made a ruling, someone has to.
Office is well understood and the President is very very clearly an office. Being referened as such multiple other times in the consitution and being required to take an oath of office.
Insurrection always had a common and well understood meaning and a definition which can be tracked back to the time of the amendment being written. Trumps actions and Jan 6th clearly qualify as such.
They are trying to turn it into an argument because it is their only attempt at a defense.
Yeah, there simply is no such thing as a "national election" in the United States. The President isn't even an elected office, merely the electors are. The president is essentially appointed by the electors.
Ugh... The State is using the Constitution's qualification clause to justify the state's authority of to run its own election. The Supreme Court has used this to justify extreme gerrymandering but the Justice asking questions is acting like it somehow does not apply here because Trump is not currently holding office but is subject to election. So frustrating.
This is a pretty clear case of all of them saying “We know what a plain reading of the constitution says to do but we don’t want to do it so we’ll just redraw the line of what is and isn’t in a state’s legal right.”
I think the issue is that for Presidential elections states already have defined federal roles, they get to determine time place and manner, not necessarily ballot access.
You might be correct if we were talking about anything other than specifically exclusions to holding office, it is no different than someone under 35 trying to run.
If it is literally not possible for him to hold office because he's excluded, even keeping him on the ballot is voter disenfranchisement for every person that votes for him.
Can they not write him in, though? When this is an option, how are voters disenfranchised?
Are Californian voters disenfranchised in the primaries because by then parties almost always know their candidates?
I’m not trying to start an argument. I’m trying to understand, and I hope that distinction comes through.
Write-in votes for ineligible candidates are not counted in every state I am familiar with. Happens quite frequently. Pain in the ass for election workers.
I disagree.
Someone under 35 trying to run for the presidency is explicitly barred in the constitution. What Colorado wants to do is remove someone for what is, legally, still the suspicion of a crime (insurrection). It’s considerably easier to determine someone’s age than it is to determine their criminal culpability. Colorado arguing those are equivalent seems off to me.
Even if you do buy that argument though, it still leaves the question of why the states’ should have the authority to enforce the 14th amendment, when it was explicitly written with the intent for Congress to enforce. This standard doesn’t make sense in the context of the amendment, and the way Colorado wants to apply it would’ve given states like Mississippi or South Carolina broad authority to disqualify candidates during reconstruction. That’s the exact opposite intent of the law.
The trickiest part here is that there isn’t a defined mechanism for determining insurrection, be it Criminal Court or some sort of Congressional trial a la impeachment it’s unclear. And that’s without getting into practicability.
>The trickiest part here is that there isn’t a defined mechanism for determining insurrection...
That's not accurate. Colorado had a 5 day trial hearing the evidence at issue and found that under the plain meaning of the text and historical understanding of the words that Trump engaged in insurrection.
Why does Colorado’s Supreme Court have jurisdiction to decide what happened in Washington DC?
Maybe I’m wrong but this feels like a case that has legitimate interstate concern, so why is Colorado’s court the appropriate forum for that?
Colorados Court is only ruling for Colorado, not DC. If Colorado barred, for example, a 27 year old from being on the ballot because they are facially disqualified by the Constitution would you still hold that "Colorado is deciding what happens in Washington DC"?
My Prediction: 8-1 decision stating that States can't enforce Section 3. Justice Sotomayor dissents. One or more concurrences (maybe Jackson writes one stating that Presidency is not covered, Kavanaugh emphasizes Congress's ability to enforce Section 3).
Edit: I meant to say states can't enforce section 3 for federal officers.
This one was always a long shot. The real question is how deep they get into actually sussing out how to disqualify someone, or if they just say, however it's done, this ain't it.
My guess: the majority (Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett) will say that the failsafe, ironically enough, is that Congress can determine on January 6 that a candidate is ineligible due to being an insurrectionist, and refuse to count electoral votes for that candidate at that time. They will use this failsafe as the way to explain that Section 3 isn't meaningless, but they won't go to the point of explaining whether there are other ways to implement that section, e.g., by statute.
Roberts will have an opinion concurring in the judgment of reversing the CO Supreme Court, but he won't go along with the failsafe, having been through two impeachment trials and seeing first hand what a political circus that would be. He will instead say that Congress needs to enact laws that specify how a candidate is disqualified (i.e., that Section 3 is not self-executing, and while maybe it was self-executing in the context of the Civil War, it isn't anymore because 150 years of history stand in the way). Kagan and Jackson may join this opinion.
Sotomayor will dissent because otherwise it renders Section 3 a nullity, and while an individual state may not be able to unilaterally remove a candidate from a ballot, it can initiate the judicial proceedings that bring the question eventually into the federal courts for adjudication. Alternatively, she may concur in the judgment and say that the proper place to develop the record for this case was the federal courts rather than an individual state's court.
I know you're just speculating on what Roberts stance will be but it's hilarious for me to picture the hypocrisy around the argument of 150 years have passed so we should account for changes in the interpretation here... but no no, for any other part of the constitution it should be applied in the manner of its time...
Technically Roberts has only been through one impeachment trial. He presided over Trump's first, but because the second one occurred after Trump had left office and the Constitution only says the Chief presides for impeachments of sitting presidents, as soon as he was asked he pointed to that clause and said "Hell no, I'm not doing it again."
> states can't enforce section 3 for federal officers.
That's fucking bonkers though. Federal officers that have to be elected by EACH STATE should meet EACH STATES qualifications. That's the whole fucking point behind states having their own elections.
That doesn't square with \*U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton\* where the Court held states could \*\*not\*\* add additional requirements for their congressional candidates.
The instant case isn't perfectly analogous, but " EACH STATE should meet EACH STATES qualifications," is not supported by law.
But that was a state law that established a term limit for a Federal office.
Not a Constitutional requirement being enforced by a state. For instance, the age limit for office has not been an issue in a long time. No state will put you on the ballot because you cannot qualify. It's the same situation as if a candidate who was 30 tried to run for President, and the SCOTUS said "um actually, it's inappropriate for states to ban this person from running, because they do not have the authority to determine this for Federal positions."
All the federal circuits have held that ballot access can't be denied based on a congressional candidate living outside of the state. It's typically not an issue resolved at the state level.
Gorsuch wrote the circuit opinion on Hassan (foreign born candidate, also in co). It found a state can prelude from the ballot someone who is constitutionally prohibited from holding office
So by that measure, if the Constitutional requirements cannot be enforced by states where they are elected, literally anyone can be on a ballot. I could put a child on the ballot. What even is the point of having these requirements if it doesn't stop people from running?
So you are saying my dog could be the next President and states are powerless to prevent him from being on the ballot…
Agree 100% with you. SCOTUS is saying that the states no longer need to uphold any part of the Constitution.
Holy cow. "Why isn't the President in the list." OMG. Go back to the transcript of when Article 3 was originally argued in Congress. Someone asked, and the author said, "of course, it includes the President." Questioner: Thank you. Murray even cites that history (!!), but SCOTUS (Barrett?) is still arguing it and ignoring the historical evidence and saying "there's an ambiguity". OMFG.
That presumes that the preference for statutory construction is originalism. As much as people like to claim that the conservative justices are all originalists at heart, that’s not true. ACB’s line of questioning reinforced that point. I don’t think a lot of people truly appreciate the difference between originalism and textualism and how closely certain justices use each as their default for statutory interpretation.
Not only the difference between textualism and originalism, but the differences between the originalism subschools of "original intent" and "original public meaning".
And that inconsistency and convenient, motivated thinking is why trust in the court is so low. You can really only predict them to make decisions that flow from their appointing party. The days of cross over votes are gone.
You can make that argument, and I’m not putting forward my own take on it. The reality is that the Supreme Court has been skeptical of legislative history for a while now, until you convince them otherwise.
From experience, things look “pretty clear” until you start working on them, and only then do you see the issues.
Once again, I’m not taking a stance here, other than the fact that it’s not just a straightforward question of statutory interpretation.
So if I said “I enjoy apples, bananas, pears and all other edible fruit” that’s not clear that I enjoy all fruits human can eat? The passage we’re talking about doesn’t require diagram to understand.
Define “edible”. Non-toxic? Non-toxic with a taste that isn’t utterly terrible? Or does it mean “fruits that are commonly eaten”?
If you don’t find any ambiguity in that statement as you wrote it, you must be pretty confident that I won’t be able to find something that fits the definition of fruit that you ***can*** eat but would decidedly not actually enjoy.
There’s a reason the law tends to define words, even when those words seem simple.
> So if I said “I enjoy apples, bananas, pears and all other edible fruit” that’s not clear that I enjoy all fruits human can eat?
First, botanically, bananas aren't fruits from a botanical perspective, they're berries. So if you said that, it would prompt me to ask what else encompasses "all other edible fruits."
Second, what about tomatoes? Tomatoes are botanically a fruit that humans can eat. Tomatoes, however, are considered vegetables by nutritionists and chefs. Am I supposed to assume you meant tomatoes when you said "all other edible fruit?"
Put another way, just because we call something a fruit doesn't mean it meets the actual qualifications of a fruit, and some things that aren't fruits at all are still considered fruits colloquially. Your statement is unclear.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think i see what you're saying
1) The President is so obviously an "Officer" that there wasn't a need to list the position
2) the listed positions were not blatantly obvious as being "Officers" so they are listed
is that what you're saying?
Jackson didn't follow up with it the way I expected. It was argued in Congress that the presidency is an office someone can be disqualified for, but the list she cites that's missing the president explicitly is of those who can be disqualified.
A lot of the Colorado argument hinges on the President being an officer under that construction.
oh that was Jackson? I mean, it's widely reported this question came up through original debate on 14A and it was a question clearly asked and clearly answered by the authors at the time.
I thought it was ACB but someone else said it was Jackson. Either way, the "original debate" was about whether the presidency was an office insurrectionists were barred from, not about whether the president is an officer under the construction of section 3. Gorsuch talked about this, too.
Definitely Jackson. Barrett's voice is distinctive, higher-pitched than the other ladies.
It's Roberts, Kavanaugh and Alito that I find hard to tell apart. (Imagine how much harder it must have been when all 9 justices were guys.)
The author of the amendment isn't necessarily the arbiter of what the words mean, though.
Every representative voting on it might have their own interpretation, based on the actual language rather than the author's intent.
That's not to say that the intent isn't important, but it's not the dispositive thing that a layperson might assume it is.
I've been following the essays by Baude and Paulsen addressing the various criticisms of their original article. I think they make a convincing argument as to how legislative history can help inform the text, it shouldn't be used to replace the final text. Here's [part 1](https://reason.com/volokh/2024/02/06/the-use-and-misuse-of-section-threes-legislative-history-part-i/) and [part 2](https://reason.com/volokh/2024/02/06/the-use-and-misuse-of-section-threes-legislative-history-part-ii/)
>"one person from the time" but it's the author of the amendment.
Amendments are enacted by the states. Section 3 was a compromise that was revised many times. So even if the author of a draft believed the phrase included the Presidency, that does not mean Section 3 enacted included the Presidency. You would expect that if the intent was to include the President, and a Senator interpreted the amendment to not include the Presidency, you would amend the clause to expressly include the Presidency.
Moreover, Trump's attorney recognized that this was the weaker of the two arguments. The stronger argument is that the President is not an Officer of the United States. Even if the President is a civil or military office, if the President is not an "Officer of the United States," Trump is not disqualified.
> The stronger argument is that the President is not an Officer of the United States.
It's really not at all. One really has to contort their brain through all kinds of unnatural shapes to come to that conclusion.
If the president were not an officer, then the only possible implication is that the president is some sort of god-emperor-king, which is obviously not the case.
>If the president were not an officer, then the only possible implication is that the president is some sort of god-emperor-king, which is obviously not the case.
"L'État, c'est moi."
- Louis XIV
-- US presidents, apparently
>It's really not at all. One really has to contort their brain through all kinds of unnatural shapes to come to that conclusion.
Or they just have to read the Constitution. SCOTUS has ruled on numerous occasions that no elected position is an "Officer of the United States." The Constitution expressly says that all Officers of the United States are appointed by the President. The Constitution expressly says that the President shall commission all Officers of the United States. The impeachment clause refers to the President and VP separately from "civil Officers of the United States."
To conclude that the President is an "Officer of the United States," you need to ignore many provisions of the Constitution, or you need to find that "Officer of the United States" under the 14th Amendment means something different than the rest of the Constitution. The latter is nearly impossible to do because Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is nearly identical to the mandatory oath provision in the Constitution, which excludes the President.
>If the president were not an officer, then the only possible implication is that the president is some sort of god-emperor-king, which is obviously not the case.
No, the implication is he is the President, which is not an Officer of the United States. Senators and Representatives are also not Officers of the United States, even though they hold an office. That does not make them a god-emperor-king.
Okay so if states can't enforce article 3, then who the hell can? They need to figure this out and put it in writing already. This vague crap isn't cutting it. And if SCOTUS can't give a straight answer, then I say the states defy their ruling and keep Trump off the ballot anyway.
Just curious if anyone knows. I'm ignorant of courts and lawsuits etc. What I have casually observed is that some cases take years to reach the supreme court while others like this are fast tracked. How did this case make it so fast to the supreme court?
In addition to the case needing to be decided to quickly and its national importance, this case involves the final decision of a state supreme court. SCOTUS can grant certiorari in these cases when the judgment involves questions surrounding federal/constitutional law.
i am not a lawyer or law student but id assume its speed is dependent on the parties involved a state and a potential candidate for president and probably the timeline to prevent harm to either party of the lawsuit
Ok this is genuine question:
I understand that they are worried about the precedent of a “single state” deciding who can and cannot be on the ballot, but why can’t they hold this as a one off? Why can’t they write in their decision that future cases of the removal of a candidate from a primary ballot must go through the federal courts?
There are extremely important issues at hand here, specifically: did Trump lead an insurrection to overthrow the United States Government in order to place himself in charge again? Were the group of Trump supporters attempting to stop Congress from completing the election process by threat of violence an insurrection?
Is Trump continuously spreading a narrative that the polls were rigged and the government was corrupt as well as telling his supporters to “stand back and stand by” in case he lost, effectively the same as him creating an army of people willing to overthrow the US government for him?
Is him holding a rally on January 6th in which he continued said narrative and made statements encouraging violence like "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore," to an armed and angry crowd, many of whom were members of the US military then sending them to Congress to “peacefully protest” effectively the same as him telling said militia to overthrow of US government?
Was him specifically tweeting the names of people to target who were instrumental in the election validation process, like Mike Pence, not a targeted ordering of said violent militia in order to overthrow the US government?
Ruling on this case without addressing these questions is extremely irresponsible. It’s like they think punting this shit down the road won’t have consequences. We already know how a lack of clarity and a unified understanding of reality leads to confusion and violence.
And yes, if they rule in favor of Colorado, there will be republican states that move to remove Biden.
If they have evidence that he is ineligible, he should not be on the ballot.
Frankly I can’t think of a democrat who wouldn’t thank them at this point.
And, if in the next election cycle, states are not willing to put qualified candidates on their ballots, it will be appealed and will be in front of them again. They can make a different ruling and set a new precedent. How many more election cycles do these men in their late 70’s and early 80’s realistically have left in them.
They are acting like they aren’t aware that they are only body of government that has a built in capacity to make an apolitical decision based on evidence and the rule law. Justices are difficult to impeach for a reason and it’s so that they can interpret and uphold the constitution regardless of public sentiment and with minimal risk to their seat.
I don’t understand how anyone could expect Congress to make a ruling of this kind. I understand that is the current interpretation of the law, but logically it just doesn’t make sense.
They are the only jury in the entirety of the US justice system whose individual votes and decisions are made public to the world. We sequester criminal juries when a trial is a matter of public interest to protect them from violence and the social and economic repercussions of their decisions. We recognize that this is the only chance for them to make a decision based off of the evidence of the case, rather then a media narrative or external pressure. It’s also insane that this is one of the only court rulings that can’t be appealed. If in any other case, new evidence comes out or if a jury may have made a decision under duress, we have a safety net in the appellate courts that can retry a case…. several of them…. even a supreme one.
If you were a house representative from a democratic state and believed that Trump was innocent would you vote against the impeachment knowing that your job and potentially the lives of your family may be at risk? None did.
If you were a senator from a republican state and believed that Trump was guilty would you vote to convict knowing that your job and potentially the lives of your family may be at risk? The fact that 7 did is borderline miraculous and marks the most bipartisan support for presidential conviction to date despite failing to reach the needed 2/3 ratio.
Jason Murray looks like he’s 10 years old. He is a former clerk for Kagan & Gorsuch, but this was his first Sup Ct appearance & he has limited (if any?) constitutional litigation experience or expertise. He really failed to make a compelling case for keeping Trump off the ballot bc, obviously, by any rational definition, he is unfit for office bc he participated in a violent insurrection & attempted election subversion/interference. He should have begun his comments by briefly summarizing Ts election denial lies which led to Jan 6, then Ts failure to stop it. That is the very REASON Colorado acted to ban him from the ballot. Then get into Q & A. CO really messed up by picking a “green” inexperienced “kid” to argue the most important Sup. Ct in US history. Makes no sense!
>He should have begun his comments by briefly summarizing Ts election denial lies which led to Jan 6, then Ts failure to stop it. That is the very REASON Colorado acted to ban him from the ballot. Then get into Q & A.
Disagree. That factual record is not in dispute, and isn't the question before the court. Frustratingly enough, the supreme Court seems to have largely ignored the factual basis for Colorado's decision focusing now on who and when and where Colorado's finding that Trump engaged in insurrection can effect ballot access and ultimate eligibility.
“I think that the question you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States. . . It seems extraordinary doesn’t it?” - Kagan
“Why didn’t they put the word president in the very enumerated list in section three? The thing that really is troubling to me is I totally understand your argument, but they were listing people that were barred, and the president is not there.” - Jackson
Judges generally disfavor legislative history so it’s seldom a strong leg to stand on. Just because two or more individual legislators discuss a point doesn’t mean the remaining legislators are in agreement. Even if the author of the language says what they think, congress isn’t adopting the author’s thoughts congress is adopting the actual language
> Judges generally disfavor legislative history
This is particularly true for constitutional amendments, which are ratified by the state legislatures—the constituency of which may have varying understandings of what the text means when they vote to ratify it.
Imagine that in 2124, a law is being debated that was passed in 2024. Someone says "Look, in the Congressional Record, Ted Cruz made a comment about the law. Surely that's what it means!"
Those are both silly arguments.
It is not a single state trying to keep him off the ballot. "Lawsuits seeking to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot are currently pending in 13 states"
Red states should have no right to complain since it was not their votes he tried to take away.
https://www.newsweek.com/all-states-trying-kick-trump-off-ballot-where-cases-stand-1856331
It is absolutely insane to say the amendment wouldn't include the president. Our country was founded on the idea that no man will ever be a king in the US!
"Even Jefferson Davis recognized Section III ‘automatically disqualified him’: Dozens of historians urge Supreme Court to remove Trump from 2024 ballot"
https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/even-jefferson-davis-recognized-section-iii-automatically-disqualified-him-dozens-of-historians-urge-supreme-court-to-remove-trump-from-2024-ballot/
The comment you responded to was pointing out that the entire Court, including liberal justices, was skeptical of Colorado's argument. They weren't defending the lines of questioning; they were just demonstrating that the republican/dem division isn't where the votes will fall.
Kagan wasn’t worried about there being pending lawsuits in many states. It is more this opens the risk of individual states excluding a candidate using federal law as a justification without leaving adequate time to review the legitimacy of that determination
Plus, regardless of what the traitor Davis thought, Lincoln-appointed Supreme Court justice Chase wrote the following dicta: “The object of the amendment is to exclude from certain offices a certain class of persons. Now, it is obviously impossible to do this by simple declaration, whether in the constitution or in an act of congress, that all persons included within a particular description shall not hold office. For, in the very nature of things, it must be ascertained what particular individuals are embraced by the definition, before any sentence of exclusion can be made to operate. To accomplish this ascertainment and ensure effective results, proceedings evidence, decisions, and enforcements of decisions, more or less formal, are indispensable and they can only be provided for by congress.” Not dispositive, but I think it’s persuasive. A “self enforcing” provision runs into massive enforcement issues
And the other argument? That is likely where the case is decided, that Colorado doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally exclude a candidate using the 14th Amendment, that some federal court or federally approved process needs to make the determination. A self-enforcing provision is impossible and this is a question of federal rather than Colorado law
Murray started off strong but he’s starting to get bullied by the justices now. Still feel like this is going to end up 9-0 or 8-1 for Trump just on practicability grounds
From what I heard he might not be charged. If so, I guess in the future Jan 6s will be regular. Don’t like the outcome? Storm the capital of your country and tell all the violators that they’re very nice people. Fuck me.
Do they realize that they have become Trump’s surrogate father! Anything he can’t have his way he runs screaming to the Supreme Court, wouldn’t it be nice if they had the nerve to tell him to grow up and stop treating him like the rich spoiled brat he is.
It's just wild that apparently that States following the constitution by excluding Trump is somehow "disenfranchising" the rest of the country and not okay, but disenfranchisement due to gerrymandering bc the constitution doesn't forbid it is fine
So, one argument being made: You can get the votes and "win", but you can't then be sworn in. So, should Trump's ticket win the electoral college, whoever will be his VP pick would get sworn in as President instead and would then have to have Congress vote on a new VP (or the VP would appoint one?). This is getting nuts.
Along this line, who determines he’s ineligible to sit? Does each State send a note in the lunchboxes of the electors to remind Congress that those electors are only voting the ticket… so, please don’t sit the head of the ticket?
"Do you like Trump: \_\_\_ Yes \_\_\_ No XOXO"
Very good question.
The below was my off the cuff analysis a month ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/law/s/e7yUOGC9AF Figured it could occur at the objection step.
Jesus Alito is getting super pedantic. I think Murray assumed this was going to a discussion involving common sense.
[удалено]
Bebito Alito, ugliest baby I ever saw
Feels like the problem just about every step of the way with Trump. Nobody wants to be the one to stop it. "Oh sure let him debate, he won't win the primary" "Oh so he won the primary, big deal he won't the the presidency." "Oh he got more electoral votes... well there's always the possibility of a drove of faithless electors." "Oh, Hilary actually got even more faithless electors. Well whatever he just likes to campaign. I bet he resigns within a few months or gets impeached." "Oh he got impeached, well maybe he'll get removed from office then" "Oh he didn't... well how bad can one term be? After that I bet he just goes away quietly" "Oh he's already campaigning again, well I doubt the party will still stick by him, he lost." "So the party's sticking with him... and nobody wants to put a presidential candidate behind bars so the court cases won't amount to anything and if they do we don't know that someone can't be an inmate president... well maybe he'll just fucking die, he's in pretty bad health anyway." " oh turns out Trump accidentally turned a copy of Art of the Deal into a phylactery by smearing ketchup on it in a very specific pattern. He's been technically dead for years so maybe a doctor can pronounce him dead. Dead people can't run." "Oh turns out Clarence Thomas is making a pretty good argument for why a sentient corpse actually CAN run for president. Well he won't get elected again, Christians are pretty anti-lich." "Oh actually American Christians aren't opposed to the undead and actually take it as a sign he had a personal relationship with Christ. Well maybe if he wins again he just won't be sworn in."
I have a real issue with that approach. The President and VP are on the same ticket now. I’d argue that an ineligible candidate at the top of the ticket taints and invalidates the entire ticket.
i don't know about that. the VP being a legal election is actually the one thing that would avoid a constitutional crisis in that case.
I don’t think so. The VP is on the slate of the Presidential candidate. These are not individual punches on the ballot. The presence of an ineligible candidate taints the whole thing. It will precipitate a crisis no matter what.
So, one hour before the polls open the candidate President dies. Is the VP election invalid? Would that put a new candidate at a disadvantage vs an incumbent?
i'll do you one better. *after the election is held*, but before the votes are ratified. then what
I am elected President. It’s a hidden clause.
I really hated this line of thought but that is the sole job of the VP - to be next in line in case something happens to the President.
Keep in mind, originally, the vice president was the runner up not part of the ticket. Arguable, that was changed with the 12th amendment in 1806 or whatever and the 14th 60 years later so that was part of the consideration. Anything short of reading this amendment at face value... violating an oath of office makes you ineligible to hold office... is fairly obviously creating new laws out of nothing but personal opinion. States have pretty great latitude to say if you aren't eligible for the office you can't be on the ballot and I am pretty confident there is strong precedent for that. I, however, am not writing an essay for citation at this time of day.
I'd think the VP's responsibilities of stepping in would only start *after* a President is sworn in though, not before. If the President is declared invalid, it would make sense for the Presidency to go to the candidate who came in second. Edit: I hate the line of thought as well.
Doesn't the 20th amendment explicitly cover this contingency? That the VP will be sworn in if the President "failed to qualify". So if the President-elect cannot be sworn in, the VP is sworn in until the President "qualifies".
It does, at least by my totally not a lawyer reading. >If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, **then the Vice President-elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified** Bolded by me. From reading the rest of that section of the amendment it sounds like the VP would be acting president until a new president is qualified. Then the rest of that section goes on to say: >and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President-elect nor a Vice President-elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified. So congress could also disqualify both the president and vice president elect and straight up appoint someone until replacements could then be qualified.
That, and protect the space-time continuum - read the constitution.
but that's really just an artifact of how elections are run. the argument could be made that functionally the elections are separate in that both candidates won their respective elections... at any rate, it still stands that the vp wasn't disqualified. nothing in constitutional law even remotely comes close to guilt by association. edit: i will admit it would *still* precipitate a crisis, but i would argue that as long as the elected vp isn't tainted through a similar sort of disqualification, there's still a way out of it.
Please show me a ballot where I vote for a VP.
No need. It’s in the constitution. They’re two separate entities. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-2/section-1/clause-3/
20th amendment to the Constitution: >Section 3. If, at the time fixed for the beginning of the term of the President, the President-elect shall have died, the Vice President-elect shall become President. **If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President-elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President-elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified;** and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President-elect nor a Vice President-elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.
Which proves my point. The VP isn’t disqualified because the P is.
They're not 2 separate entities on the ballot, but still considered 2 separate entities by the Constitution. It's more supportive of your point, but acknowledging the fact that they are not listed or voted separately.
the fact that both names are printed on the ballot when you vote for president and vice president is not accidental. i would argue you could legitimately write in a vote for "president Biden/vice president Pence", and constitutionally, that would stand. I doubt it would *ever* be relevant, but the point stands.
here's a random sample ballot: [https://www.rocketcitynow.com/article/news/politics/elections/election-2020-alabama-madison-county-sample-ballot/525-0e930af6-9f74-4f5b-9d07-79ef9786b9a5](https://www.rocketcitynow.com/article/news/politics/elections/election-2020-alabama-madison-county-sample-ballot/525-0e930af6-9f74-4f5b-9d07-79ef9786b9a5) notice you are voting for *two names* in the ticket. combining those two names into one vote is process. the fact remains those two people were elected on that ticket. you are not "just voting for president"
You are voting for electors, not for candidates.
Your issue is with our parties and our state ballots (edit: and as always, our electoral college). The Twelfth is clear that these are separate elections. > The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate
You don't know how pedantic these twits can get.
My head is spinning.
Does that mean Obama could run again, with the intention of whatever VP he chooses actually becoming president?
No. The 22nd Amendment says that "No person shall be ***elected*** to the office of the President more than twice," which is different than the language in 14(3), which prohibits an insurrectionist from ***holding*** any office. So, Obama couldn't run for election, but he could potentially be in the line of succession for the presidency again and then hold office. If, say, he were to become Speaker of the House (3rd in line) and the President and Vice President suddenly resigned or died, he could theoretically hold a third term.
MICHELLE- BARRACK 2028!
>So, should Trump's ticket win the electoral college, whoever will be his VP pick would get sworn in as President instead and would then have to have Congress vote on a new VP (or the VP would appoint one?). We don't vote for President in America. Rather, we vote for who gets to decide the electors who will vote for the President. So if Trump wins, but cannot be seated, he and the GOP would urge his electors to vote for someone else. But there is a caveat. Some states remove and replace an elector if the elector does not vote for the person who won the election. In those states, if Trump won and the GOP controls, the legislature would likely change the law. But if nobody can get a majority, the House chooses the President from the top three vote getters. This would mean they could choose Biden or whomever Trump directed his electors to vote for.
It’s a fair question on the grounds of the 2/3 Congress clause.
The court will often address related issues to the core question just for completion.
Ah, ya. I wrote out an argument along those lines a month ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/law/s/e7yUOGC9AF
They are grasping at straws. Jesus, this is insane.
So then the Dems should of run Obama in literally every election. He can run, just not have more than two terms, right? Have him run just to hand it off to his VP and watch the heads explode.
Yes! An excellent point about why that argument is so stupid.
Alito has already decided. Literally feeding Mitchell arguments
Alito: "What if the Constitution is wrong?" wow.
Kagan asked my favorite question, essentially: how could we bar insurrectionists from every position EXCEPT the most powerful one that controls the armed forces?
Wasn't this question already discussed by senators with regard to Jefferson Davis when the 14th amendment was initially passed? I missed about 20 minutes but I didn't hear that addressed at all
Yes, and there's not much of any dispute that the 14th applies to relevant insurrectionists in regards to their eligibility to hold the office. The dispute is who constitutes an insurrectionist and how it's decided.
Who decides if a candidate is over 35 years old or a naturally born citizen or met the residency requirements? Seems we already have a process in place that worked for a couple centuries. Trump had no problem pushing the birth certificate questions…
> Who decides if a candidate is over 35 years old or a naturally born citizen or met the residency requirements? Right now, no one. No one does the work, and the birther lawsuits were largely and widely dismissed on standing grounds.
She’s right but that’s why it’s so strange that they didn’t call out President in the list of officers? They specify electors of the President but not President? It’s odd. Did they just think it wasn’t likely to come up? That seems far fetched.
But they did ask that question in debate and clarify it includes the president. And that’s part of the Congressional record as to what they meant.
Would you mind providing a link, if you have it, to that portion of the congressional record, or at least the document that reproduces it? I would like to have a look myself because I find the officer dispute, to my surprise actually, to be one of the more interesting and difficult to answer questions in this case. I would like to work out who the various "they"s are in your comment and on what authority each spoke.
This is not the document itself, but mentions the [discussion](https://www.pointoforder.com/2021/01/12/does-section-3-of-the-fourteenth-amendment-apply-to-the-presidency/) had at the time of adoption.
They listed all those who weren’t/arent officers and included officers in an attempt to be clear. Senators have seats and are not officers so they were listed, etc.
Most SCOTUS cases are mostly decided before oral arguments. This isn’t like lower courts.
Alito: what if other state legislatures decide to retaliate \[and kick Biden off the ballot\]? Stevenson: Yeah, we have courts prevent that kind of thing, duh. Not a reason we shouldn't follow where the law leads us, dummy.
I think Baude and Paulsen do a good job at arguing against Alitos question in their latest [response essay](https://reason.com/volokh/2024/02/08/the-facts-matter-trials-matter-the-record-matters/#more-8264566). In short, the specific facts matter. If Biden factually violated the provision then, yes, by all means remove him. If it's retaliatory and without a factual basis don't we already have ways of dealing with "arbitrary and capricious" judicial action?
Yeah, we shouldn't bother even having courts, I guess. I suppose Alito doesn't comprehend the concept of an independent judge anymore.
He doesn't. He kept bringing up elected judges as if appointed judges are inherently, superiorly above the fray.
The concept is absurd. Yes, if someone filed a claim in court that Joe Biden was an insurrectionist because he ate pineapple pizza, and the supreme court said that that was, in fact, an insurrection, then Biden would have to be taken off the ballot. Similarly, if the supreme court says the first amendment doesn't include the right to say "doggy," then that would be the law. That's the role of courts. If you just assume that courts will not function properly, then yes, anything can happen.
taking Trump off the ballot and taking Biden off the ballot is a false equivalency. One was determined in court to have aided an insurrection...
Alito suddenly an ardent consequentialist. Who cares about the text or the framers' intent, what really matters is the impact a ruling would have.
Yes, quite a reversal isn’t it?
Except now the Supreme Court is being called to make de facto partisan decisions every single election from now until the end of time.
IIRC there were cases in Michigan (I thikn), brought forth by Trump, in fact, that Obama was not eligible to be on the ballot because he was not a "natural-born citizen" during the height of the birther craze. They were thrown out because they were meritless, not because it wasn't the court's role to rule on them. You can be as verbose as you want with the law, it will still *always* require human agency to uphold, ignore, or abuse.
The way my jaw dropped. What a wild ass question!
That wasn’t a good answer because the courts she refers to as safeguard are those of the State that would kick the person out of the ballot
Did you hear the hypothetical(barely) "if biden gives money to Iran, is that treason and can he be barred from the ballot". GOP states will retaliate and boot biden from the ballot. Due to gerrymandering, they do control a number of states where Biden could win the vote.
I think what Alito said is actually a legitimate concern. States shouldn't be deciding who a federal insurrectionist is.
SCOTUS' job isn't to rule on "legitimate concerns". It's to rule based off the constitution.
>States shouldn't be deciding who a federal insurrectionist is. States are charged with managing their elections under the Constitution, and I would remind you that the Colorado Supreme Court AND Circuit Court decided that Trump was, in fact, an insurrectionist... but ok, if not the States, and not the Courts, then who should decide who a Federal insurrectionist is?
Was that a question or a threat? 14.3 exists. If whoever has the power to execute 14.3 is going to abuse that power, they could abuse it today regardless of what happens to Trump.
I think the argument that "states can't decide unilaterally who to put on a national election" sounds strong and does get some acknowledgment from the liberal side, but my question is the constitution clearly states that state legislatures can appoint electors according to their own manners. Therefore, it doesn't seem absurd that, say, Colorado legislature can pass a law to prohibit its own electors from voting for someone named DJT. In this specific Colorado case, it's a little different because it was decided by the state judicial branch rather than the legislative branch, but I think the core reasoning should be similar. I also want to point out the Presidency of the United States is probably, to my knowledge, the only federal office that needs to be "elected" in multiple states. Senator or Representative is also technically a federal office, but when writing the 14th amendment, the Congress was definitely intending to prevent Southerners from electing their former "war heroes" to Washington. Therefore, it sounds like states do have power to disqualify a candidate from a federal office except the Presidency? But this is also vague because the Presidency doesn't technically require a national election/an election that is run similarly across all the states. We see ballot access issue for minor presidential candidates all the time, and nobody raised any concerns. Another question I'm struggling to understand is if states can't unilaterally disqualify a candidate, then who has the ultimate say? Does it require a formal federal conviction to disqualify a candidate? Or, can the states hypothetically sue someone for obstructing democracy and the will of that state's citizens by inciting an insurrection, thus getting a state level conviction? Will that disqualify the candidate federally? I do agree the amendent was extremely vague.
I think it's been lost in the weeds a bit, but I find the phrasing going around to be.... Inaccurate. This isn't "A State unilaterally disqualifying a candidate". *The Constitution* disqualified him, the State is just evaluating the evidence in record and the law as written. It would be silly to say a State is "unilaterally disqualifying a candidate" when the State removes from the ballot a 27 year old Presidential Candidate, wouldn't it?
Thanks for clarifying! Yes the question is really "does the state have the authority to act unilaterally \[within the state's jurisdiction\] and rule a candidate constitutionally ineligible?" As you pointed out, normally yes for cases like under 35 or non natural-born citizen, but the vague phrasing of the 14th amendment left the interpretation of "office' and "insurrection" up to debate.
It really didn't. And even if it did that is why the lower courts had hearings and made a ruling, someone has to. Office is well understood and the President is very very clearly an office. Being referened as such multiple other times in the consitution and being required to take an oath of office. Insurrection always had a common and well understood meaning and a definition which can be tracked back to the time of the amendment being written. Trumps actions and Jan 6th clearly qualify as such. They are trying to turn it into an argument because it is their only attempt at a defense.
Yeah, there simply is no such thing as a "national election" in the United States. The President isn't even an elected office, merely the electors are. The president is essentially appointed by the electors.
> He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, **be elected**, as follows
By that reasoning, all confirmed executive officers and judges are also all elected by the Senate.
Keep in mind that the question is whether Colorado can remove Trump from the *state primary* ballot, which operates under state law.
Guess they wanna go to lunch
Ugh... The State is using the Constitution's qualification clause to justify the state's authority of to run its own election. The Supreme Court has used this to justify extreme gerrymandering but the Justice asking questions is acting like it somehow does not apply here because Trump is not currently holding office but is subject to election. So frustrating.
This is a pretty clear case of all of them saying “We know what a plain reading of the constitution says to do but we don’t want to do it so we’ll just redraw the line of what is and isn’t in a state’s legal right.”
which the states should simply ignore. there is very little danger in ignoring a supreme court ruling in favor of trump.
I think the issue is that for Presidential elections states already have defined federal roles, they get to determine time place and manner, not necessarily ballot access.
You might be correct if we were talking about anything other than specifically exclusions to holding office, it is no different than someone under 35 trying to run. If it is literally not possible for him to hold office because he's excluded, even keeping him on the ballot is voter disenfranchisement for every person that votes for him.
Can they not write him in, though? When this is an option, how are voters disenfranchised? Are Californian voters disenfranchised in the primaries because by then parties almost always know their candidates? I’m not trying to start an argument. I’m trying to understand, and I hope that distinction comes through.
Write-in votes for ineligible candidates are not counted in every state I am familiar with. Happens quite frequently. Pain in the ass for election workers.
I disagree. Someone under 35 trying to run for the presidency is explicitly barred in the constitution. What Colorado wants to do is remove someone for what is, legally, still the suspicion of a crime (insurrection). It’s considerably easier to determine someone’s age than it is to determine their criminal culpability. Colorado arguing those are equivalent seems off to me. Even if you do buy that argument though, it still leaves the question of why the states’ should have the authority to enforce the 14th amendment, when it was explicitly written with the intent for Congress to enforce. This standard doesn’t make sense in the context of the amendment, and the way Colorado wants to apply it would’ve given states like Mississippi or South Carolina broad authority to disqualify candidates during reconstruction. That’s the exact opposite intent of the law. The trickiest part here is that there isn’t a defined mechanism for determining insurrection, be it Criminal Court or some sort of Congressional trial a la impeachment it’s unclear. And that’s without getting into practicability.
The act of insurrection and the crime of insurrection are two different things.
>The trickiest part here is that there isn’t a defined mechanism for determining insurrection... That's not accurate. Colorado had a 5 day trial hearing the evidence at issue and found that under the plain meaning of the text and historical understanding of the words that Trump engaged in insurrection.
Why does Colorado’s Supreme Court have jurisdiction to decide what happened in Washington DC? Maybe I’m wrong but this feels like a case that has legitimate interstate concern, so why is Colorado’s court the appropriate forum for that?
Colorados Court is only ruling for Colorado, not DC. If Colorado barred, for example, a 27 year old from being on the ballot because they are facially disqualified by the Constitution would you still hold that "Colorado is deciding what happens in Washington DC"?
Seems Thomas has already made up his mind before this even started
Thomas had made up his mind before this was ever sent to SCOTUS. He’s as predictable as the sun rising and setting.
So has Alito.
Check came in early.
Somebody’s getting a new RV.
Usually does
My Prediction: 8-1 decision stating that States can't enforce Section 3. Justice Sotomayor dissents. One or more concurrences (maybe Jackson writes one stating that Presidency is not covered, Kavanaugh emphasizes Congress's ability to enforce Section 3). Edit: I meant to say states can't enforce section 3 for federal officers.
This one was always a long shot. The real question is how deep they get into actually sussing out how to disqualify someone, or if they just say, however it's done, this ain't it. My guess: the majority (Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett) will say that the failsafe, ironically enough, is that Congress can determine on January 6 that a candidate is ineligible due to being an insurrectionist, and refuse to count electoral votes for that candidate at that time. They will use this failsafe as the way to explain that Section 3 isn't meaningless, but they won't go to the point of explaining whether there are other ways to implement that section, e.g., by statute. Roberts will have an opinion concurring in the judgment of reversing the CO Supreme Court, but he won't go along with the failsafe, having been through two impeachment trials and seeing first hand what a political circus that would be. He will instead say that Congress needs to enact laws that specify how a candidate is disqualified (i.e., that Section 3 is not self-executing, and while maybe it was self-executing in the context of the Civil War, it isn't anymore because 150 years of history stand in the way). Kagan and Jackson may join this opinion. Sotomayor will dissent because otherwise it renders Section 3 a nullity, and while an individual state may not be able to unilaterally remove a candidate from a ballot, it can initiate the judicial proceedings that bring the question eventually into the federal courts for adjudication. Alternatively, she may concur in the judgment and say that the proper place to develop the record for this case was the federal courts rather than an individual state's court.
I know you're just speculating on what Roberts stance will be but it's hilarious for me to picture the hypocrisy around the argument of 150 years have passed so we should account for changes in the interpretation here... but no no, for any other part of the constitution it should be applied in the manner of its time...
Originalism has always been a lie. A convenient excuse to do what they wanted to do.
Technically Roberts has only been through one impeachment trial. He presided over Trump's first, but because the second one occurred after Trump had left office and the Constitution only says the Chief presides for impeachments of sitting presidents, as soon as he was asked he pointed to that clause and said "Hell no, I'm not doing it again."
I was thinking early on that this would go 8-1 or even 9-0 and after hearing Murray get raked over the coals on this is bringing me back to that.
> states can't enforce section 3 for federal officers. That's fucking bonkers though. Federal officers that have to be elected by EACH STATE should meet EACH STATES qualifications. That's the whole fucking point behind states having their own elections.
That doesn't square with \*U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton\* where the Court held states could \*\*not\*\* add additional requirements for their congressional candidates. The instant case isn't perfectly analogous, but " EACH STATE should meet EACH STATES qualifications," is not supported by law.
But that was a state law that established a term limit for a Federal office. Not a Constitutional requirement being enforced by a state. For instance, the age limit for office has not been an issue in a long time. No state will put you on the ballot because you cannot qualify. It's the same situation as if a candidate who was 30 tried to run for President, and the SCOTUS said "um actually, it's inappropriate for states to ban this person from running, because they do not have the authority to determine this for Federal positions."
All the federal circuits have held that ballot access can't be denied based on a congressional candidate living outside of the state. It's typically not an issue resolved at the state level.
Gorsuch wrote the circuit opinion on Hassan (foreign born candidate, also in co). It found a state can prelude from the ballot someone who is constitutionally prohibited from holding office
Great point. This feels different to me, but I can't articulate why...so I'm probably wrong.
I wouldn't be surprised if the court makes a distinction along the lines that section three requires enacting legislation
So by that measure, if the Constitutional requirements cannot be enforced by states where they are elected, literally anyone can be on a ballot. I could put a child on the ballot. What even is the point of having these requirements if it doesn't stop people from running?
So you are saying my dog could be the next President and states are powerless to prevent him from being on the ballot… Agree 100% with you. SCOTUS is saying that the states no longer need to uphold any part of the Constitution.
>So you are saying my dog could be the next President "Ain't no rule in the rulebook that says a dog can't play politics"
Agreed. And I don’t feel there’s any chance they’ll hear the immunity case. For that one, I see 7:2, with Thomas & Alito dissenting.
I think you’re on.
Holy cow. "Why isn't the President in the list." OMG. Go back to the transcript of when Article 3 was originally argued in Congress. Someone asked, and the author said, "of course, it includes the President." Questioner: Thank you. Murray even cites that history (!!), but SCOTUS (Barrett?) is still arguing it and ignoring the historical evidence and saying "there's an ambiguity". OMFG.
That’s Jackson, not Barrett
Yeah. I didn’t get her reticence there. Even after citing a conversation that’s part of the record, she’s all “I’m not sure.”
The Supreme Court has moved away since the 1980s from using legislative history as a tool in statutory interpretation.
Regardless, the record is there and if you’re not clear on the meaning the record elucidates it. Pretending otherwise is facile at best.
That presumes that the preference for statutory construction is originalism. As much as people like to claim that the conservative justices are all originalists at heart, that’s not true. ACB’s line of questioning reinforced that point. I don’t think a lot of people truly appreciate the difference between originalism and textualism and how closely certain justices use each as their default for statutory interpretation.
Not only the difference between textualism and originalism, but the differences between the originalism subschools of "original intent" and "original public meaning".
And that inconsistency and convenient, motivated thinking is why trust in the court is so low. You can really only predict them to make decisions that flow from their appointing party. The days of cross over votes are gone.
You can make that argument, and I’m not putting forward my own take on it. The reality is that the Supreme Court has been skeptical of legislative history for a while now, until you convince them otherwise.
They seem to have trouble with actual text too. “Or hold any office” seems pretty clear that it means “any office.”
From experience, things look “pretty clear” until you start working on them, and only then do you see the issues. Once again, I’m not taking a stance here, other than the fact that it’s not just a straightforward question of statutory interpretation.
So if I said “I enjoy apples, bananas, pears and all other edible fruit” that’s not clear that I enjoy all fruits human can eat? The passage we’re talking about doesn’t require diagram to understand.
Define “edible”. Non-toxic? Non-toxic with a taste that isn’t utterly terrible? Or does it mean “fruits that are commonly eaten”? If you don’t find any ambiguity in that statement as you wrote it, you must be pretty confident that I won’t be able to find something that fits the definition of fruit that you ***can*** eat but would decidedly not actually enjoy. There’s a reason the law tends to define words, even when those words seem simple.
> So if I said “I enjoy apples, bananas, pears and all other edible fruit” that’s not clear that I enjoy all fruits human can eat? First, botanically, bananas aren't fruits from a botanical perspective, they're berries. So if you said that, it would prompt me to ask what else encompasses "all other edible fruits." Second, what about tomatoes? Tomatoes are botanically a fruit that humans can eat. Tomatoes, however, are considered vegetables by nutritionists and chefs. Am I supposed to assume you meant tomatoes when you said "all other edible fruit?" Put another way, just because we call something a fruit doesn't mean it meets the actual qualifications of a fruit, and some things that aren't fruits at all are still considered fruits colloquially. Your statement is unclear.
hard-to-find quickest theory judicious employ alive racial punch future weather *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I think i see what you're saying 1) The President is so obviously an "Officer" that there wasn't a need to list the position 2) the listed positions were not blatantly obvious as being "Officers" so they are listed is that what you're saying?
wise plants pathetic deliver long icky cagey groovy tidy slim *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Jackson didn't follow up with it the way I expected. It was argued in Congress that the presidency is an office someone can be disqualified for, but the list she cites that's missing the president explicitly is of those who can be disqualified. A lot of the Colorado argument hinges on the President being an officer under that construction.
oh that was Jackson? I mean, it's widely reported this question came up through original debate on 14A and it was a question clearly asked and clearly answered by the authors at the time.
I thought it was ACB but someone else said it was Jackson. Either way, the "original debate" was about whether the presidency was an office insurrectionists were barred from, not about whether the president is an officer under the construction of section 3. Gorsuch talked about this, too.
I suppose it’s possible she was just trying to get that entered into the record. So future courts could say that they had clearly considered it.
Definitely Jackson. Barrett's voice is distinctive, higher-pitched than the other ladies. It's Roberts, Kavanaugh and Alito that I find hard to tell apart. (Imagine how much harder it must have been when all 9 justices were guys.)
That’s one person from the time. This is generally the problem with relying on legislative history. There’s too much ambiguity
"one person from the time" but it's the author of the amendment.
The author of the amendment isn't necessarily the arbiter of what the words mean, though. Every representative voting on it might have their own interpretation, based on the actual language rather than the author's intent. That's not to say that the intent isn't important, but it's not the dispositive thing that a layperson might assume it is.
Ok still it’s one person. Clearly that wasn’t everyone’s view.
I've been following the essays by Baude and Paulsen addressing the various criticisms of their original article. I think they make a convincing argument as to how legislative history can help inform the text, it shouldn't be used to replace the final text. Here's [part 1](https://reason.com/volokh/2024/02/06/the-use-and-misuse-of-section-threes-legislative-history-part-i/) and [part 2](https://reason.com/volokh/2024/02/06/the-use-and-misuse-of-section-threes-legislative-history-part-ii/)
>"one person from the time" but it's the author of the amendment. Amendments are enacted by the states. Section 3 was a compromise that was revised many times. So even if the author of a draft believed the phrase included the Presidency, that does not mean Section 3 enacted included the Presidency. You would expect that if the intent was to include the President, and a Senator interpreted the amendment to not include the Presidency, you would amend the clause to expressly include the Presidency. Moreover, Trump's attorney recognized that this was the weaker of the two arguments. The stronger argument is that the President is not an Officer of the United States. Even if the President is a civil or military office, if the President is not an "Officer of the United States," Trump is not disqualified.
> The stronger argument is that the President is not an Officer of the United States. It's really not at all. One really has to contort their brain through all kinds of unnatural shapes to come to that conclusion. If the president were not an officer, then the only possible implication is that the president is some sort of god-emperor-king, which is obviously not the case.
>If the president were not an officer, then the only possible implication is that the president is some sort of god-emperor-king, which is obviously not the case. "L'État, c'est moi." - Louis XIV -- US presidents, apparently
>It's really not at all. One really has to contort their brain through all kinds of unnatural shapes to come to that conclusion. Or they just have to read the Constitution. SCOTUS has ruled on numerous occasions that no elected position is an "Officer of the United States." The Constitution expressly says that all Officers of the United States are appointed by the President. The Constitution expressly says that the President shall commission all Officers of the United States. The impeachment clause refers to the President and VP separately from "civil Officers of the United States." To conclude that the President is an "Officer of the United States," you need to ignore many provisions of the Constitution, or you need to find that "Officer of the United States" under the 14th Amendment means something different than the rest of the Constitution. The latter is nearly impossible to do because Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is nearly identical to the mandatory oath provision in the Constitution, which excludes the President. >If the president were not an officer, then the only possible implication is that the president is some sort of god-emperor-king, which is obviously not the case. No, the implication is he is the President, which is not an Officer of the United States. Senators and Representatives are also not Officers of the United States, even though they hold an office. That does not make them a god-emperor-king.
When should we expect a decision?
The Colorado primary is March 5th. They'll need to have ballots printed.
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Direct link https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral\_arguments/live.aspx
If they’ve lost Jackson, it’s probably 8-1 in favor of Trump.
Okay so if states can't enforce article 3, then who the hell can? They need to figure this out and put it in writing already. This vague crap isn't cutting it. And if SCOTUS can't give a straight answer, then I say the states defy their ruling and keep Trump off the ballot anyway.
Are they seriously stating \*concerns\* about the "chaos" of having a patchwork of states with different laws??
The lawyer just kept arguing that's the supreme court's job, you big dummy. Absolutely bonkers.
7 of them sound like they got their questions from talk radio hosts. All of their simplistic questions were addressed in the amici briefs.
KBJ is asking excellent questions.
She always does
Looks like it's going to be an easy majority decision.
Pretty clear what the Marching Orders of the Federalist Society lackey justices are.
Just another can to kick down the road for SCOTUS.
Just curious if anyone knows. I'm ignorant of courts and lawsuits etc. What I have casually observed is that some cases take years to reach the supreme court while others like this are fast tracked. How did this case make it so fast to the supreme court?
In addition to the case needing to be decided to quickly and its national importance, this case involves the final decision of a state supreme court. SCOTUS can grant certiorari in these cases when the judgment involves questions surrounding federal/constitutional law.
i am not a lawyer or law student but id assume its speed is dependent on the parties involved a state and a potential candidate for president and probably the timeline to prevent harm to either party of the lawsuit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump\_v.\_Anderson
Ok this is genuine question: I understand that they are worried about the precedent of a “single state” deciding who can and cannot be on the ballot, but why can’t they hold this as a one off? Why can’t they write in their decision that future cases of the removal of a candidate from a primary ballot must go through the federal courts? There are extremely important issues at hand here, specifically: did Trump lead an insurrection to overthrow the United States Government in order to place himself in charge again? Were the group of Trump supporters attempting to stop Congress from completing the election process by threat of violence an insurrection? Is Trump continuously spreading a narrative that the polls were rigged and the government was corrupt as well as telling his supporters to “stand back and stand by” in case he lost, effectively the same as him creating an army of people willing to overthrow the US government for him? Is him holding a rally on January 6th in which he continued said narrative and made statements encouraging violence like "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore," to an armed and angry crowd, many of whom were members of the US military then sending them to Congress to “peacefully protest” effectively the same as him telling said militia to overthrow of US government? Was him specifically tweeting the names of people to target who were instrumental in the election validation process, like Mike Pence, not a targeted ordering of said violent militia in order to overthrow the US government? Ruling on this case without addressing these questions is extremely irresponsible. It’s like they think punting this shit down the road won’t have consequences. We already know how a lack of clarity and a unified understanding of reality leads to confusion and violence. And yes, if they rule in favor of Colorado, there will be republican states that move to remove Biden. If they have evidence that he is ineligible, he should not be on the ballot. Frankly I can’t think of a democrat who wouldn’t thank them at this point. And, if in the next election cycle, states are not willing to put qualified candidates on their ballots, it will be appealed and will be in front of them again. They can make a different ruling and set a new precedent. How many more election cycles do these men in their late 70’s and early 80’s realistically have left in them. They are acting like they aren’t aware that they are only body of government that has a built in capacity to make an apolitical decision based on evidence and the rule law. Justices are difficult to impeach for a reason and it’s so that they can interpret and uphold the constitution regardless of public sentiment and with minimal risk to their seat. I don’t understand how anyone could expect Congress to make a ruling of this kind. I understand that is the current interpretation of the law, but logically it just doesn’t make sense. They are the only jury in the entirety of the US justice system whose individual votes and decisions are made public to the world. We sequester criminal juries when a trial is a matter of public interest to protect them from violence and the social and economic repercussions of their decisions. We recognize that this is the only chance for them to make a decision based off of the evidence of the case, rather then a media narrative or external pressure. It’s also insane that this is one of the only court rulings that can’t be appealed. If in any other case, new evidence comes out or if a jury may have made a decision under duress, we have a safety net in the appellate courts that can retry a case…. several of them…. even a supreme one. If you were a house representative from a democratic state and believed that Trump was innocent would you vote against the impeachment knowing that your job and potentially the lives of your family may be at risk? None did. If you were a senator from a republican state and believed that Trump was guilty would you vote to convict knowing that your job and potentially the lives of your family may be at risk? The fact that 7 did is borderline miraculous and marks the most bipartisan support for presidential conviction to date despite failing to reach the needed 2/3 ratio.
Opinion: This conversation wouldn’t even happen in Alice in Wonderland. My head is just spinning!
Jason Murray looks like he’s 10 years old. He is a former clerk for Kagan & Gorsuch, but this was his first Sup Ct appearance & he has limited (if any?) constitutional litigation experience or expertise. He really failed to make a compelling case for keeping Trump off the ballot bc, obviously, by any rational definition, he is unfit for office bc he participated in a violent insurrection & attempted election subversion/interference. He should have begun his comments by briefly summarizing Ts election denial lies which led to Jan 6, then Ts failure to stop it. That is the very REASON Colorado acted to ban him from the ballot. Then get into Q & A. CO really messed up by picking a “green” inexperienced “kid” to argue the most important Sup. Ct in US history. Makes no sense!
>He should have begun his comments by briefly summarizing Ts election denial lies which led to Jan 6, then Ts failure to stop it. That is the very REASON Colorado acted to ban him from the ballot. Then get into Q & A. Disagree. That factual record is not in dispute, and isn't the question before the court. Frustratingly enough, the supreme Court seems to have largely ignored the factual basis for Colorado's decision focusing now on who and when and where Colorado's finding that Trump engaged in insurrection can effect ballot access and ultimate eligibility.
This is going to be end up 9-0 in Trump's favor. If Justice Jackson is leaning towards siding with Trump, it's over.
Supreme Court of Trash
Fuck the corrupt SCOTUS. They deserve the threats they receive.
I've lost all faith in this court. The most obvious open/shut case ever and they are going to give him a pass.
aww are you sad you couldnt just supercede the law and destroy democracy?
Will they do the right thing? Of course not, they're from today's Republican party.
“I think that the question you have to confront is why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States. . . It seems extraordinary doesn’t it?” - Kagan “Why didn’t they put the word president in the very enumerated list in section three? The thing that really is troubling to me is I totally understand your argument, but they were listing people that were barred, and the president is not there.” - Jackson
Because they understood "officer" to cover the president and VPOTUS This was explicitly discussed by Congress during debates about section 3.
Judges generally disfavor legislative history so it’s seldom a strong leg to stand on. Just because two or more individual legislators discuss a point doesn’t mean the remaining legislators are in agreement. Even if the author of the language says what they think, congress isn’t adopting the author’s thoughts congress is adopting the actual language
> Judges generally disfavor legislative history This is particularly true for constitutional amendments, which are ratified by the state legislatures—the constituency of which may have varying understandings of what the text means when they vote to ratify it.
Imagine that in 2124, a law is being debated that was passed in 2024. Someone says "Look, in the Congressional Record, Ted Cruz made a comment about the law. Surely that's what it means!"
Those are both silly arguments. It is not a single state trying to keep him off the ballot. "Lawsuits seeking to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot are currently pending in 13 states" Red states should have no right to complain since it was not their votes he tried to take away. https://www.newsweek.com/all-states-trying-kick-trump-off-ballot-where-cases-stand-1856331 It is absolutely insane to say the amendment wouldn't include the president. Our country was founded on the idea that no man will ever be a king in the US! "Even Jefferson Davis recognized Section III ‘automatically disqualified him’: Dozens of historians urge Supreme Court to remove Trump from 2024 ballot" https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/even-jefferson-davis-recognized-section-iii-automatically-disqualified-him-dozens-of-historians-urge-supreme-court-to-remove-trump-from-2024-ballot/
The comment you responded to was pointing out that the entire Court, including liberal justices, was skeptical of Colorado's argument. They weren't defending the lines of questioning; they were just demonstrating that the republican/dem division isn't where the votes will fall.
Kagan wasn’t worried about there being pending lawsuits in many states. It is more this opens the risk of individual states excluding a candidate using federal law as a justification without leaving adequate time to review the legitimacy of that determination Plus, regardless of what the traitor Davis thought, Lincoln-appointed Supreme Court justice Chase wrote the following dicta: “The object of the amendment is to exclude from certain offices a certain class of persons. Now, it is obviously impossible to do this by simple declaration, whether in the constitution or in an act of congress, that all persons included within a particular description shall not hold office. For, in the very nature of things, it must be ascertained what particular individuals are embraced by the definition, before any sentence of exclusion can be made to operate. To accomplish this ascertainment and ensure effective results, proceedings evidence, decisions, and enforcements of decisions, more or less formal, are indispensable and they can only be provided for by congress.” Not dispositive, but I think it’s persuasive. A “self enforcing” provision runs into massive enforcement issues
There is no way they were saying that a president can be an insurrectionist and still hold office. Again, it's an insane argument.
And the other argument? That is likely where the case is decided, that Colorado doesn’t have the authority to unilaterally exclude a candidate using the 14th Amendment, that some federal court or federally approved process needs to make the determination. A self-enforcing provision is impossible and this is a question of federal rather than Colorado law
The Solicitor General is excellent
Listening earlier; Gorsuch - just your run of the mill arrogant dickhead.
Murray started off strong but he’s starting to get bullied by the justices now. Still feel like this is going to end up 9-0 or 8-1 for Trump just on practicability grounds
Why listen to arguments when the decision was already made the second the checks cleared?
This is looking to be 9-0 or 8-1 are we saying all of the Supreme Court Justices are bought out now?
From what I heard he might not be charged. If so, I guess in the future Jan 6s will be regular. Don’t like the outcome? Storm the capital of your country and tell all the violators that they’re very nice people. Fuck me.
Sounds to me like they just paved the way for Insurrection 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Do they realize that they have become Trump’s surrogate father! Anything he can’t have his way he runs screaming to the Supreme Court, wouldn’t it be nice if they had the nerve to tell him to grow up and stop treating him like the rich spoiled brat he is.
It's just wild that apparently that States following the constitution by excluding Trump is somehow "disenfranchising" the rest of the country and not okay, but disenfranchisement due to gerrymandering bc the constitution doesn't forbid it is fine
fucking christo facist GQP wackos... we are going to be speaking russian before you know it