Surprise!!
Did anyone think for even a moment that this illegitimate “supreme” court would rule in good faith? This court serves only conservatives and billionaires.
This court is a conservative roach motel. It should be tossed into the deepest part of the garbage.
While listening to the hearing this morning, I was taken by the overall consensus and impartiality of ALL the justices (though Barrett does sound like a child who’s in way over her head). I was surprised most by Jackson’s line of questioning which seemed more opposed to the ballot removal than anyone else.
This isn’t about conservatives - conservatives are the one’s suing to keep him off the ballot. It’s about the Constitution and state rights.
If you’re interested in the actual legality of it all, rather than the “politics”, I would encourage you to keep away from biased media opinions, click/rage-bait headlines, and (it should go without saying) social media. It’s actually an extremely interesting case and this article you are commenting on without reading is a great place to start.
Conservative and liberal justices alike questioned during arguments Thursday whether Trump can be disqualified from being president again
A lot of it appeared super obvious to me over the past few months but the justices and lawyers are bringing up some interesting perspectives I would never have thought of.
Their main concern was whether Congress must act before states can invoke a constitutional provision that was adopted after the Civil War to prevent former officeholders who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office again.
Justice Elena Kagan was among several justices who wanted to know “why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States.”
Chief Justice John Roberts worried that a ruling against Trump would prompt efforts to disqualify other candidates, “and surely some of those will succeed.”
You and I and the internet can argue all we want about whether he should be permitted on every sate ballot (I presume we’re in agreement of the preferred outcome) but, I’ll assume, neither of us are lawyers, state counsels, or constitutional scholars. And it seems that there’s a discussion about ‘being on a ballot’ and ‘being inaugurated as president’ are the same or not. Perhaps he’s on the ballot and wins the election only to find the electors can’t vote for him. Yeah - it’s weird AF.
Kagans reasoning is so fucking stupid. No one has the right to run for president and kicking one person off doesn’t “decide who is president” it means they’re not qualified. If I was 34 and tried to run they would say I’m not qualified…not that the state was deciding I couldn’t be president.
Exactly. Saying that one state doesn’t have the right to make the call is basically saying they can’t enforce constitutionally based rules. If that is the case then everything would have to go to federal court, and the states would have a lot less control over their own electoral process.
The constitution is very clear about who is eligible to be president.
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Constitutionally, aside from those who don’t qualify, yes everyone does have the right to run for president.
There are a couple arguments regarding “the office” and “an official” and “participated in an insurrection” that may or may not disqualify someone from being federally permitted to “be” president or permitted to be on a state election ballot. States already have different rules to make it onto a ballot. Just in the past couple weeks, Biden wasn’t on the NH primary ballot (he won as a write in).
If all the red states decided they didn’t want Biden on the ballot, they could decide who would be president before the election even took place. To prevent that from happening, it needs to be determined what the rules are and the legal precedent needs to be established for state courts to decide the legal battles.
We all know what happened on January 6th. But there’s a lot of people who want to misrepresent that history. I can’t believe this is the case but it is now reasonable to assume that a state could make up new history and say Biden was a participant in insurrection or guilty of treason and disqualify him from being on the ballot.
Not arguing anything other than that the aftermath of him being on the ballot, winning, and then being told he can’t take office would shatter this country
would shatter this country
Having laws not matter would do the same thing.
There should be a ruling on what constitutes an insurrection, but this trial is not about that.
And I think that a ruling on that is a long way off.
Well, one argument is that the clause is self serving and Trump does not need to be found guilty of a crime to be disqualified. Another (ridiculous, imo) argument is if the person holding the office of the presidency is an official.
We don’t need that. We have federal definitions for insurrection, and participants on Jan 6 have been convicted of seditious conspiracy. It was a violent act to interfere with the constitutional transfer of power after a legitimate election. That’s insurrection, and Trump supported them. None of those facts are in dispute.
Justice Elena Kagan was among several justices who wanted to know “why a single state should decide who gets to be president of the United States.”
A single state didn’t decide who gets to be President. A single state decided who qualifies to appear on their ballots under state law, as all states are entitled to do.
Chief Justice John Roberts worried that a ruling against Trump would prompt efforts to disqualify other candidates, “and surely some of those will succeed.”
Bad faith slippery slope argument. Colorado passed a law and took the case to court where the State Supreme Court made a ruling. If there’s another state where the State Supreme Court has both the authority and the audacity to disqualify a candidate for partisan reasons, those justices should be charged with treason against America.
Then should a small federal subcommittee screen all candidates on the state’s behalf before they’re placed on the ballot?
I think finding ourselves in the position where a candidate won the popular vote but the electors are unable to vote for him, that would be a blunder as a country at best, cause an uprising among all the disenfranchised voters at worst.
Also one of their arguments that you left out is whether or not the POTUS is an officer of the United States… Which I think is an obvious YES! He is the commanding officer of the military, and as a veteran, I was trained that the POTUS was an officer.
In what warped reality is the President of the United States not “an officer of the US”? The amendment was literally made for this exact situation.
It makes less than zero sense that the drafters and ratifiers of the amendment meant to leave the highest office in the nation out of the purview of the amendment. Absolute horseshit.
Pretty disappointing to see the comments from some of the more liberal justices…
Not only is what you’re saying obviously correct, but THE PEOPLE WHO VOTED IN THE FUCKING AMENDMENT was asked about this exact lack of the word “president”, and pointed to the officer line, and said that clearly included the president.
It’s also worth noting that there was just a single reference in the Senate debate to the fact that the president and vice president were not explicitly mentioned in Howard’s draft as “officer(s) of the United States,” the way members of Congress and state officials had been itemized in the text. Would the disqualification clause of the amendment not cover the top posts in the executive branch?
“Why did you omit to exclude them?” asked Maryland Democratic Sen. Reverdy Johnson.
Maine’s Lot Morrill jumped in to clarify.
“Let me call the Senator’s attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,’” Morrill said, ending the discussion on that point.
It sounds to me like they are going to weasel out of it by saying the Colorado Supreme Court doesn’t have the authority to make that decision for everyone.
Which they didn’t.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump is disqualified and cannot appear on the Colorado ballots. The Colorado Supreme Court does have that authority, because the Colorado state legislature gave it to them and nothing in federal law says they don’t. Colorado had previously disqualified another candidate, and the judge who determined they could was Neil Gorsuch.
There is no question as to whether the President is an officer of the United States. There is no question as to whether his oath to uphold and defend the constitution is also an oath to support the constitution. There is no question as to whether the actions on January 6th were an insurrection, as several participants have already been convicted of seditious conspiracy. There is no question as to whether Trump supported them, because he live tweeted his support to the world in real time. There is no question as to whether Trump needs to be convicted, because the amendment never mentions conviction, and none of the other people previously disqualified under this amendment from office were convicted of anything.
None of these arguments holds even the faintest hint of water. They are bad faith arguments made by political hacks with a predetermined agenda to support Trump. The court is illegitimate, and we have no functional justice system.
None of these arguments holds even the faintest hint of water.
And guess how much they care for this? They are not neutral, they don’t follow the law, they just “interpret” it to follow their political agenda. Just compare their deposits and transcripts before they were voted into the office, and their deeds afterwards. The three judges called by Trump are a disgrace to the office if there ever was one.
Just the notion that people label them as “conservative” or “republican” judges shows that they are lacking keys requirement for the job: objectivity and neutrality.
Colorado had previously disqualified another candidate.
Who was the other candidate? My understanding is that this case is unique in that it pertains to the President. The President is the only official elected by all Americans so this is what separates them from other officials, congressional candidates, presidential electors, etc. If someone is running for president, they should be accessible to vote for by all Americans.
If someone is illegible for President, is it proper for individual states to make the determination to keep them off the ballot? Or should it be a decision made by congress, SCOTUS, the presidential electors, or the political party? This part isn’t mentioned in the constitution. And uhhh, as we know, the constitution says whatever isn’t in the constitution is left to the states. Still, that’s a tricky corner to be stuck in when you’re talking about 50 states voting for President.
It was indeed a presidential candidate. Hassan v Colorado, 2012.
… as the magistrate judge’s opinion makes clear and we expressly reaffirm here, a state’s legitimate interest in protecting the integrity and practical functioning of the political process permits it to exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office. See generally Munro v. Socialist Workers Party, 479 U.S. 189, 193-95 (1986); Bullock v. Carter, 405 U.S. 134, 145 (1972).
Also, you’ve got a typo. Ineligible. Illegible means something written so poorly that it cannot be understood.
They could be taking an absurdly and ultimately pointless stance that primaries aren’t covered by the constitution and his presence is meaningless on the ballot of a private group. It would allow Trump on the primary ballot and still give the option for blocking him in the general election, or more likely the electors ballot.
They could go so far as to say being elected is fine, but he would be disqualified from taking the oath and becoming president, so in a Trump victory the vice president is the real winner.
While you’re correct, SCOTUS will most likely rule on the basis of this being “too politicized” and write some vague motions to support it. “Officer of the US” is just one of the many avenues they can take. It’s not the first time they’ve skirted controversial rulings this way.
Tbf it’s also worked in reverse to uphold lower court rulings affirming civil rights, etc in the past too. Right or wrong, it’s a “how the sausage is made” moment for the Judiciary Branch.
To be clear: I personally believe not upholding the Colorado/Maine, etc rulings to be a failure of our systems of checks and balances. Just pointing out the mechanism behind the court’s choices.
In what warped reality is the President of the United States not “an officer of the US”?
The one where POTUS is the only “officer” not mentioned in section 3 of the 14th amendment. This was brought up in the case today at 1:57:10 https://www.youtube.com/live/6VpJKUscNaM?si=r1DuX5F82so1XaTB&t=7032
Justice Jackson asks,
Then why didn’t they put the word President in the very enumerated list in section 3? They were listing people that were barred and president is not there.
Murray (representing Colorado Voters) answered this referring to the debates in congress that occurred over section 3.
Johnson said why haven’t you included president in the language? Moore responds, we have. Look at the language any office under the United States…
Jackson cuts in,
doesn’t that at least suggest ambiguity?
This part was very satisfying to hear…
Murray goes on to argue (1:59:03) that those listed in the section three (presidential electors and senators and representatives) do not hold offices while the constitution does say the presidency does hold an office (though he didn’t indicate where is says this).
Jackson moves on from this after saying she appreciated the argument.
I felt this was a very important and convincing exchange. So, fingers crossed.
Reference https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/amendment-14/section-3/
Section 3 Disqualification from Holding Office
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
So that would mean insurrection would be legal in America. If Biden loses to Trump, I will feel empowered to riot in the same way. Time to get a gun I guess.
Anything resembling a more left leaning insurrection will get a very different response than the last one. You will be murdered by the state on the spot. The feds bombed a civilian neighborhood in the 80s for less than that.
This is why we take the “peaceful protest” straight to the supreme Court where the real seat of conservative political power lies.
This is why we take the “peaceful protest” straight to the supreme Court where the real seat of conservative political power lies.
Better get on it or you will be out of time.
No. The questions posed by the Supreme Court centered around whether there was merit in allowing any single state, which may have arbitrary criteria and or processes, to effectively eliminate a candidate from the ballot, and if so, under what constraints. Ours a valid question. Where is the line? If you allow this precedent, how might it be abused by others?
Funny how no one claims states rights here.
That only seems to be a Republican talking point.
Because it is not a state’s right to interpret the Constitution as they see fit.
Colorado isn’t interpreting it, merely following it. He’s been found guilty in a Colorado Court for a crime that disqualifies him to appear on the ballot of that state.
To argue otherwise is to argue that states can’t remove teenagers from the ballot even though they’re too young to hold office.
“Supreme court seems poised to reject efforts to kick insurrectionist Donald Trump off the ballot over the January 6th insurrection, despite the law saying no insurrectionists can be on the ballot”
