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.
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
I fully agree, but if the implementation of the penalties to breaking a law are structured in such a way that the damage caused by not enforcing them is equal to or less than enforcing them then we’ve already lost. Even if it weren’t Trump if a candidate is allowed on the ballot and can’t legally win what is the recourse after the election? Was there any choice at all? Do we do a flash election?
I’m seriously asking because if that’s the case I don’t see anything resembling a decent future for anyone under any of the remaining options besides democrat and Biden landslide precident changing election
Imagine the uncertainty the Biden campaign could spread (they won’t because they are bad at their jobs). The American public would be so frustrated with any ruling that did not address how the ammendment should be applied.
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.
Well I’d note that technically speaking what they’re saying is NOT that states may not decide who can be elected president but rather that they cannot decide who runs.
One of trumps arguments is that he can run and be elected and appear on the ballot EVEN IF he is not eligible for president. Isn’t that great?
The constitution is very clear about who is eligible to be president.
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Constitutionally, aside from those who don’t qualify, yes everyone does have the right to run for president.
There are a couple arguments regarding “the office” and “an official” and “participated in an insurrection” that may or may not disqualify someone from being federally permitted to “be” president or permitted to be on a state election ballot. States already have different rules to make it onto a ballot. Just in the past couple weeks, Biden wasn’t on the NH primary ballot (he won as a write in).
If all the red states decided they didn’t want Biden on the ballot, they could decide who would be president before the election even took place. To prevent that from happening, it needs to be determined what the rules are and the legal precedent needs to be established for state courts to decide the legal battles.
We all know what happened on January 6th. But there’s a lot of people who want to misrepresent that history. I can’t believe this is the case but it is now reasonable to assume that a state could make up new history and say Biden was a participant in insurrection or guilty of treason and disqualify him from being on the ballot.
If all the red states decided they didn’t want Biden on the ballot, they could decide who would be president before the election even took place. To prevent that from happening, it needs to be determined what the rules are and the legal precedent needs to be established for state courts to decide the legal battles.
This would require the state courts to all agree and then the Supreme Court to concur. Colorado isn’t getting the final word on who can be president, they’re dutifully interpreting the Constitution, making a ruling, and then letting the highest court in the land review it. It’s like the Maine case writ large, it needs to start somewhere, but just because that case started with a single person making a decision doesn’t mean that’s the whole process or that the process itself is illegitimate. There’s nothing unilateral about this, but the Supreme Court sounds like it wants to dodge responsibility for deciding whether Colorado is right or not by questioning whether they should have even been able to start the process.
Saying “Congress could just do the thing the plaintiff wants” is their tried and true dodge for things they know quite well can’t or won’t be done by Congress. They’re quite happy to implement law without Congress’s help when it’s something they want and quite happy to pretend they’re just deferring responsibility when it’s something they don’t.
Hey, just chiming because we might both get downvoted to hell for this. After reading your comments i have altered my mindset on this somewhat and i agree that this is a presedent you dont want to go over easily. Its a knife that cuts both ways an can be used to cut you, once both parties see its possible. It would also be a funny moment when people vote for a canidate in their state, only for their spokesperson to not be able to vote for said canidate, making him, or her, not the president.
Whatever happens, the power hungry of all sides need to follow the rules, and just like everything about trump is a fucking presedent that we need to analyse and handle very carefully…
when people vote for a canidate in their state, only for their spokesperson to not be able to vote for said canidate, making him, or her, not the president.
Agreed on the careful handling. With how partisan so many issues have been in the past few years, I can see this opening the door to more significant incidents in the future. Not to go “tin-foil-hat-civil-war,” but I can see an example of Massachusetts, New York, and California doing XYZ while Texas, Georgia, and Florida have done ZYX that’ll just add fuel to the fire.
Look at the diversity of states’ positions after the overturn of Roe v Wade. It has eerily similar vibes as free and slave states did 160+ years ago. Ugh, at this point, it’s time for me to meditate and read a book or something to relax.
Congrats on reading part of the applicable sections of the Constitution. Now read the one that actually applies here.
The part about insurrection. It is already clear based on congressional oversight of the executive branch that he is an insurrectionist. That’s what the bi partisan j6 commission determined. There is no need for the courts here at all as nowhere does it say he needs to be convicted.
In fact former uses of this law didn’t require a conviction. There’s already case law supporting that fact.
I understand all that. I believe the issue is how this is handled. Is it up to the states? Is it up to congress? Is it up to the presidential electors? Is it up to the DNC / RNC? Who’s the entity that determines who is and is not on the ballot?
As I think I understand it, the issue at hand is if a state has the authority to unilaterally bar a ‘presidential candidate’ from a ‘general election ballot’ for this reason.
Does the state get to determine on their own that the candidate is illegible? What is it in the state’s constitution that says so? Shouldn’t such a fact be established on a federal level to prevent the candidate from appearing on all ballots? These things aren’t clear in the constitution.
Noticed this in your other comment and thought it was a typo but now you’ve forced my hand lol. Illegible means not legible, as in scrawled handwriting or bad print that is too sloppy to read.
If all the red states decided they didn’t want Biden on the ballot, they could decide who would be president before the election even took place.
If a state wanted, it could just decide to let the state legislature pick the electors and not hold a popular vote at all. The US Constitution just says that each state appoints electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” It’s only state laws and state constitutions that create requirements to let the people vote, so a state could repeal those for itself unilaterally.
For example, here’s the relevant section of law in Georgia (OCGA § 21-2-10):
At the November election to be held in the year 1964 and every fourth year thereafter, there shall be elected by the electors of this state persons to be known as electors of President and Vice President of the United States and referred to in this chapter as presidential electors, equal in number to the whole number of senators and representatives to which this state may be entitled in the Congress of the United States.
(“Electors of this state” means the voting public, while “presidential electors” means the people getting nominated to the Electoral College.)
All GA would have to do is repeal that paragraph and then the General Assembly could pick whatever presidential electors they wanted, public preference be damned (at least until the legislators themselves were up for re-election).
If a state wanted, it could just decide to let the state legislature pick the electors and not hold a popular vote at all.
I was surprised this wasn’t raised as a counterargument by the Colorado attorney when the “one state could determine who’s elected” argument was made. (If it was, I missed it.) The justices are worried that states (let’s just say it: “red states”) could make up some frivolous reason to keep someone off the ballot and disqualify them, but the brutal reality is that they could do it already by screwing with the electors. (Hell, Trump and his co-conspirators tried sending fake electors from some states.) Setting a precedent allowing states to use Section 3 of the 14th Amendment just give states another way to accomplish this. “Oh, Biden tripped walking up to a podium? That’s insurrection!”
What’s really sad/outrageous is that Trump and the GOP have so terribly warped and perverted the political norms in this country that we have to even consider the possibility of states fabricating frivolous reasons to keep someone off the ballot. We can’t keep a 91 felon count indicted insurrectionist, fraudster, and rapist from getting elected and destroying democracy because his friends may avenge him by abusing and misapplying the law in the future. This really sucks.
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.
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.
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.
The disconnect is that this case isnt determining whether or not Trump engaged in insurrection. There is already a case going on to determine that. And it's just common sense that it goes in that order, he has to be found guilty of insurrection before he can legally be labeled as an insurrectionist.
Okay but that already happened. There's another case determining the part about whether he goes to jail for it, but that he is an insurrectionist per the amendment is already resolved.
The one being relitigated here before the SC. Lowest court ruled that he was an insurrectionist, second tier ruled that president is in fact an office and that the oath for it applies.
It's not resolved, this is the same case, a higher court can overrule their decision. It was never their jurisdiction to decide if he committed federal crimes.
Right. It was their jurisdiction to decide if he was an insurrectionist per the amendment. They did, he is. Federal crimes is a different case. Just like the recent defamation case ruled he was a sexual assaulter. Wasn't a criminal case, didn't carry the risk of jail time, did have consequences.
In that case, the sexual assault had no consequences, it was a defamation case. Like it didnt involve him having to register as a sex offender or anything, because in the eyes of the law he isn't one.
I do not understand the US judiciary nullifying a portion of the “sacred” constitution. Seems like the beginning of the end, to an outside observer. Thanks for all the fish!!
No, no, don't worry, the Supreme Court ruling that the plain language of the Constitution must be interpreted in ever-narrower ways (except when it helps the right-wing) is totally not troubling at all.
No way man, this is the middle of the end. The beginning of the end was when they introduced legal bribery after dumbing down the general populace for a couple decades.
Looks like 248 years is the cutoff for a democratic United States. We’ll soon see if the Christians can contain their collective erection for destroying societies for 2 years so we can at least say 250.
The US has barely ever been a democracy. Women didnt get the right to vote until 1920 and Black people were barely allowed to vote until the 1960s. The US has been an apartheid state and then a plutocracy
I don’t disagree with you, but I think my point still stands; every time the Christians make a power grab, shit hits the fan.
There’s a reason the puritans got kicked out of Europe.
They didn’t come here to escape “religious persecution,” they came here to continue persecuting people who weren’t their religion. Look what they’ve done to every group that isn’t them, just from a historical perspective.
Is that what we’re gonna sit here and watch happen yet again?
I'm all for democracy in the US, but the electoral college was put in specifically to avoid being a democracy. Also representative democracy is just a fancy word for oligarchy. Plus legislation hasn't represented public opinion since the at least the 80s, based on research from Princeton.
So we've never been designed as democracy, they are checks against democracy, and we're not functionally democratic.
What christians and fascists are destroying at the moment is the rule of law.
but the electoral college was put in specifically to avoid being a democracy.
This interpretation ignores well know historical events. The electoral college was created as part of a series of compromises. It was not created to prevent democracy. The flaws in our democracy are being exploited to achieve minority rule. However, they are flaws that can be fixed, not the defining qualities of our democracy.
representative democracy, political system in which citizens of a country or other political entity vote for representatives to handle legislation and otherwise rule that entity on their behalf.
Plus legislation hasn’t represented public opinion since the at least the 80s, based on research from Princeton.
The constitution has been in effect since 1789. Recent neoliberalism aside, we have always been a democracy. We are in danger of becoming a christofascist dictatorship, in no small part because of neoliberalism, if we do not vote in record numbers in the 2024 election.
What christians and fascists are destroying at the moment is the rule of law.
The Republican party is destroying is our democracy. It’s why they focus so heavily on subverting our elections and reducing voter turn out. They will happily see that laws are enforced once they are in power. It’s “rules for thee not for me”.
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.
Questions of Legality aren’t being heard here. This is only about eligibility for being on a presidential ballot and the ability of an individual state to determine eligibility and remove the candidate from the ballot.
No. The questions posed by the Supreme Court centered around whether there was merit in allowing any single state, which may have arbitrary criteria and or processes, to effectively eliminate a candidate from the ballot, and if so, under what constraints. Ours a valid question. Where is the line? If you allow this precedent, how might it be abused by others?
It’s not allowing a single court to decide, the Supreme Court of the land is be reviewing that decision right now. They’re not just going to do that on their own. It has to start somewhere.
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.
I mean, BLM had the space in front of the Supreme Court pretty much blocked off when they decided to march on it. When the patriot prayer event happened, that was 10k plus people descending on the Supreme Court.
I mean, yeah it’s disappointing but hopefully a legal case can prove he in incited an insurrection and then states can remove him from the ballot. Then the SCOTUS would have to quite literally just nullify a a part of the Constitution, which would be… not out of the realm of possibilities at this point
The legal case in Colorado already determined he met the definitions of insurrection as known by the authors of the 14th.
Based on a summary of their questions and statements, I suspect SCOTUS will rule that only via a procedure defined by Congress can someone be determined to be ineligible for the Presidency based on the 14th. And only at the federal level.
There was such a procedure defined by law following the Civil War but it was revoked by Congress in the 1940s.
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.
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