Mumble mumble the 14th only applies to people not named Trump.
Mumble mumble the 14th only applies to civil war combatants.
Mumble mumble the 14th was not written on the correct paper, and contains too many words.
How about a decision that the 14th Amendment Section 3 is self executing but only if there has been a criminal conviction? That nicely sidesteps the actual issue while sounding reasonable.
Then I think that falls under “Colorado didn’t do it right”.
I’m starting to imagine the court saying that eligibility to be president is indeed a federal issue, and therefore there had to be a federal (not state) trial.
This is going to be interesting…to see how the SCOTUS finds a way to punt.
They can either rule that the 14th is clear as day…without commenting on the process of determining that an insurrection has occurred and that an office-seeker was engaged. So, status quo – states, state courts, state SoSs can make their own rulings. And chaos ensues.
Or they make up clauses of the 14th that don’t exist. Like: it’s up to Congress to determine who’s eligible.
Or they rule on the facts (ie, whether or not Jan 6 was an insurrection) which is not their job.
Or… and hear me out here…
They just sit on the decision until after the election.
"The lead argument that he makes here is one I haven’t heard before. The 14th Amendment only bars someone from holding office, not running for office, she continued. Therefore, he should be permitted to run, be elected, and only on January 20th of 2025, should it be said, ‘Sorry, folks, he can’t serve.’
How can the court justify requiring a criminal conviction for a civil penalty? Besides, the federal code defining insurrection as a criminal offense wasn’t written until over 50 years after the amendment was ratified. How can they require something that didn’t even exist when the amendment was passed? Finally, how many others who have been disqualified by Section 3 have had a criminal conviction of insurrection?
I believe it has been settled that States have the right to restrict who appears on the primary ballots. I think Gorsuch weighed in on that (as a state judge). I could be wrong.
I expect the SC to make a distinction between the primary elections (which as far as I know, have no Federal oversight) and the general. I also don’t expect the SC to go out on any limb for Trump. All the signs I have seen, even from Thomas, are that they really don’t support Trump as they would a Conservative.
As far as the issue of whether or not an insurrection occurred and whether or not Trump was involved, I feel they would like to ignore that. To address that, they would have to look at the evidence and either agree with the finding of the lower courts or re-evaluate the evidence.
It seems to me that a lot of the problems the SC will have to deal with this year will essentially evaporate if they agree with the lower courts. There are probably more issues we haven’t even heard about like voting rights, mail-in ballots, ballot counting , and a lot of other crap that will just go away if Trump is not allowed. Right-wingers will be mad, but Conservatives may rejoice.
By the way, folks, what exactly does “self executing” mean?
Not a lawyer, but I thought it meant that you don’t need an implementing law or court case – you should just do what the constitution says. So when the 13th amendment, outlawing slavery, was ratified, enslaved people could just walk away. A few years later, the Peonage Act was passed to provide some clarification on what qualifies as slavery, but, by then, slaves had, with perfect legality, and without getting any kind of court order, left their master (or, possibly, obtained a paying job from him) long ago.
You don’t need to pass a new law to spell out what a violation would entail, or how it would be enforced.
Consider the emoluments clause. Absent some specific law saying a president can’t accept money through his side business from foreign entities, trump proved that this was not a self executing provision of the constitution.
I’m really thinking that they are going to punt and leave it to Congress as a federal political question. I agree it should be Federal (how can someone be eligible for President in some states but not others) and this would allow SCOTUS to not have to rule directly on his eligibility.
I’ve opined the same thing even before this happened because frankly it is easily something you could envision. The judiciary, with the exception of Thomas, are proud of their independence. While it may not hurt their chances of Cavanaugh ruling for Trump, it certainly won’t help to characterize him as bought and paid for.
I’ve often wondered what would happen if Trump ever clearly outright said, “I expect loyalty from MY judges” or that Republicans in Congress or whatever we’re his slavering vassals.
At the risk of flogging my long deceased equine, examples would be not getting the required number of signatures, or filing after the required deadline. Eligibility in one state has never previously meant that you were therefore eligible in another state.
I, personally, still think this is a state by state determination. If I were on the Supreme Court, I’d uphold Colorado’s decision. That doesn’t mean trump is off the ballot elsewhere, but it does open up that possibility in state’s where he is found to either engaged in an insurrection, or (perhaps more importantly) provided aid or comfort to those who did.
I don’t see much reason for them to take up the question if they don’t intend to do something about it. They didn’t wait for the appeals court to rule before deciding to accept the case, so presumably they see the need for moving quickly before the question becomes moot. If they didn’t want to deal with it they could have comfortably and reasonably waited for the appeals court to rule, then waited for the loser of that ruling to appeal to the SCOTUS, then taken their time to schedule briefs and arguments etc etc and so forth. By being more or less proactive it leads one to believe they have a ruling in mind. No idea what that ruling might be, but something to end the limbo we find ourselves in currently.
The same way abortion is legal in some and not others.
By the way, I agree with you 100%. It should be a federal standard. But it wasn’t, and that was by design. I think it was a bad design.
Having Congress pass a new amendment setting some federal election standards would be a great thing. I’m sure that both sides can come together and agree on some rules.
(That last sentence was sarcasm.)
Not sure of this logic, but:
I’d think that any reasonably hard-working and/or curious federal Supreme Court justice has already read the Colorado ruling. If convinced that Trump is disqualified from the presidency, they would want GOP voters to know this before delegate selection begins on January 15. The fact that they will rule after delegate selection is already well under way suggests to me that they are planning to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court majority.
The New York Times says that the court will likely rule on whether Trump is qualified for the general election at the same time they rule on the Colorado primary:
I’m thinking that what I quote above has to be more than a guess, and is based on anonymous SCOTUS sources. Reasonable?
I will confess… I dread the idea of another Trump term. I also think it’s very clear that he’s not eligible to serve. What he did couldn’t be any closer to fitting what is in the 14th Amendment unless he actually took up a rifle and literally joined an army to storm the capitol himself. And he’s a criminal that should serve whatever little time he has left on this planet behind bars.
But for him to just be denied the chance to run seems… Weird. Not wrong, either morally or legally, and certainly not karmically. But still, it’s just weird to me, after everything, if he just couldn’t run because he’s not eligible.
Maybe it just feels a bit anticlimactic. Like watching the main villain in an action movie accidentally fall down stairs on the way to the big end battle and break their neck.
I wouldn’t be disappointed though, rather I’d be a bit relieved.
The fact-finding role of the trial courts is to determine the overall factual setting of the events. Appellate courts normally do not intervene with those findings of fact (but see the SCOTUS decision in the praying football coach for a counter-example).
But the next step in a trial court’s analysis is always to apply the law to those facts. To the extent that step requires an interpretation of the law, it can be subject to appellate review. The trial judge has to get the law right, in their analysis of the case, when they apply the law to the facts as found.
And that’s where the legal issue comes up here. The Colorado trial court made findings of fact about what Trump did in the lead-up to January 6, and what he did on January 6. My guess is that the Supreme Court is highly unlikely to interfere with those factual findings of the narrative of what Trump did.
But, given those findings of fact, the real issue is a legal one: did Trump’s actions amount to an « insurrection », as that term is used in the 14th Amendment? « Insurrection » is not defined and the Supreme Court will have to give some ruling as to what « insurrection » means, as a matter of constitutional law. Then they will have to make the determination: given the facts as found by the trial judge, did Trump’s actions qualify as an « insurrection », as that term is used in the 14th Amendment, triggering his disqualification?
TLDR: the trial court’s finding that Trump engaged in « insurrection » contains both factual and legal findings. Appellate courts can review the legal findings that are contained in a trial court’s ruling.