Today has been an absolutely craptastic day for the rule of law.
Saying that there has to be a uniform rule for applying 14.3 for federal offices would be one thing. It’s not a terrible principle, just one not present in the text, so it would save Trump while showing how bankrupt the so-called “originalist” framework is. Ok.
But then going further and saying Congress is the only power who can implement 14.3 is just incoherent. It contradicts 250 years of understanding of the meaning of … words.
There are alternatives. For example, SCOTUS could craft a fact finding standard and due process to implement the intent of 14.3 in the absence of explicit legislation. Courts do that all the time.
It’d be a stretch of course — but better than overturning the 2/3 vote of Congress rule to remove a 14.3 disability, which they just did today. (Unless we ignore this ruling.)
Another alternative would be a coalition of states which implement a standard protocol — if all states have the same procedure and the same answer the inconsistency problem disappears. Of course this is unlikely but what if it happened? SCOTUS just made it illegal for no good reason.
@jpanzer from what I heard there are serious problems that would prevent the Court from doing that, not the least that such a question was not before it.
The dissent was already complaining that the Court went to far, but crafting such a process out of whole cloth makes that much worse.
But yeah, I understand that the court wasn’t briefed on background that would be needed to craft such a standard, and without development below to rest on, it would be a significant overreach.
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