So, how do you think the Court will justify keeping Trump on the ballot?
What Trump did doesn’t qualify as insurrection.
Trump hasn’t been convicted of insurrection.
The insurrectionist ban is only for people who participated in the civil war
The ban doesn’t apply because presidents aren’t officers
The ban doesn’t apply because presidents swear to protect the constitution, not to support it
Section 3 can’t be enforced without congress passing legislation to enforce it.
It’s a political question so courts can’t touch it.
Trump being impeached but acquitted after the insurrection means he can’t be punished for it due to double jeopardy (I hate that this is an actual argument being made… and that it’s not even close to the stupidest one to come from team Trump)
I keep seeing this one… Am I missing something, or didn’t Colorado convict him of insurrection as part of their case? I thought that was the whole point.
But maybe I’m just trying to rationalize a group of people not acting rationally.
It’s a matter of legal jargon. When people say “convicted” they mean has there been a criminal trial in which trump was found guilty of insurrection.
This hasn’t happened. But the Colorado supreme court, a court that routinely makes decisions about criminal cases, has decided he committed insurrection.
The convicted thing is just an excuse to let him off.
to me this is where it gets interesting. that the constitution left it to the states to 'remove the burden' of being labeled an insurrectionist to congress implies maybe they also decide who is an insurrectionist ... ie, maybe it only takes one state court to declare it, but congress to remove it?
in other words, the SC could say, 'colorados ruling stands becasue they have that right, if you dont like it speak to the congress who can remove the burden'
No, Colorado’s ruling applies solely to Colorado. They didn’t convict him personally of anything, they just said his actions allow them to keep him off the ballot under the 14th Amendment. If the Supreme Court decides that Colorado misinterpreted the 14th, they could overturn their decision, but the CO decision doesn’t inherently classify Trump as an insurrectionist in other states.
I think the most sound legal reasoning would be to say he hasn’t actually been convicted of any charge that constitutes “insurrection”. Conviction is how the government asserts and proves that something happened, and to skip this step opens our legal system for a whole lot of abuse. They’re going to say that, if and when he is convicted, then he can be barred, but not before.
"LaLaLa the law doesn't matter were unaccountable to anyone for any reason because you couldn't get 2/3rds of the house to agree that puppies are cute or shit stinks."
That’s such a ridiculous argument anyway since they’re so quick to point out that impeachment is a political process and not a “legal” or judicial one.
No, they’re just suggesting it so that if (when) a justice sides with him, they can say that’s why. Nobody, not even the lawyers making the argument, believe that being acquitted during impeachment proceedings magically erases criminal liability.
The insurrectionist ban is only for people who participated in the civil war
My guess is this one or close to it. It's going to be an originalist interpretation of something like the definition of "insurrectionist" or "armed" and include a phrase like "the founding fathers didn't envision...". The reasoning might be some bad esoteric case law from the 1800's that defines insurrectionists as carrying literal muskets and pitchforks therefore Trump is not one.
That and they may just stall for time until after the election and claim they couldn't interrupt the democratic process term limits. Either way, Trump's chosen judges are about to have their decisive moment.
My hope is that they just ban him because he no longer has leverage after appointing them, but I am not sure if that would be an even worse indictment of their suitability as Supreme Court judges...
I do think that banning him is the correct legal outcome.
However, while I think banning him is better for the country than any scenario in which he wins the election (or tries to dispute/steal it again), I think the best possible scenario in the long term would be for Trump to stay in the race, only to lose in a landslide and drag the entire Republican party down with him. The more the donors and power brokers see MAGA losing, the more they will want to shift the party away from the lunatic fringe and back to more mainstream, traditional candidates.
And as a bonus, if the Court doesn’t neuter section 3, I’m sure we’ll see some bullshit challenges filed against Democrats, and at least in a few jurisdictions I’m sure they may even be able to score a token victory.
It would be possibly the most egregious thing SCOTUS has done (and they’ve done some shit) if they use this argument. We have the records of the adoption of the 14th, its original wording specified only members of the Confederacy were barred, but they explicitly changed it to cover any act of insurrection. We also know that they considered the language of “any officer” to cover the presidency because someone asked that question, and it’s in the minutes.
Egregious has been escalating at the Supreme Court, in my opinion they've been testing the waters to see what the American public will tolerate.
Roe v Wade overturn showed that Americans will tolerate the removal of rights for half the population
the fake web designer who pretended to refuse service to LGBT+ decision showed they are willing to engage with dishonest hypothetical situations and the people will tolerate it
the affirmative action decision showed that when marginalised communities are further institutionally marginalised, there will be little backlash
They've been steadily entrenching conservative power. Sotomayor has been warning everyone for years, but when one of the sitting judges publicly says that a decision is "unjustified exercise of power," and the President says the court isn't making good decisions, shit is not going well and it doesn't give me much hope.
Every individual state has the right to determine who can run for president in their state (this would be a complete clusterfuck but very funny to watch if you’re not American).
Separation of powers. This is an ambitious growth in the courts powers in determining who can be in the executive branch. They need a motion from the legislature to confirm that they have this ability.
I honestly believe that conservatives on the supreme court are going to look for a way not to rule on it. The legal case for insurrection is straightforward, and they’re going to want to just make it someone else’s problem.
And there’s no need for them to address most of it because it already comes with a remedy for the accused, appeal to congress who can vote on forgiving them.
It’s a little late for that approach, since Judge Sarah Wallace already attempted to say the 38th congress didn’t intend for the law to apply to the President but it was overturned in appeals court when documents proved they did actually discuss exactly that topic on the day and made no exclusions. So, they have no grounds to even review this case.
My guess is that they’ll rule he doesn’t qualify for being kicked off the ballot due to the 14th Amendment, but then they’ll “balance” that ruling out by ruling against Trump in his “Presidents are criminally immune no matter what they do” case. As if they’d ever rule in favor of that theory with a Democrat in the White House.
If presidents are criminally immune, then Biden can be president forever. And he could order the execution of any supreme Court justice. They need to be careful in the ruling.
The right wing justices on the court owe Trump nothing, and can look forward to using their lifetime positions to continue to ruin the country for decades. He was just a useful tool for getting them onto the court. They want Trump to stop bugging them and let them get on with it.
The three Trump justices and Thomas could recuse themselves, citing some previously hidden sense of ethics (and Habba specifically asking them for a quid pro quo).
Then a majority of the remainder would then remove Trump from the ballot.
This achieves 3 things:
Republicans would be rid of Trump, because he’s a liability to their long term success. They could nominate Haley or whatever for this cycle.
Republicans could shriek (and fundraise) endlessly off of “partisan librul socialist Democrat justices” removing Trump and why they need even MORE right wing justices.
Trump’s stochastic MAGA terrorists would focus all their fury and rage on non-rightwing justices (rather than deciding that one of their own was a “RINO” and targeting them).
The only problem with their scenario (for the Republicans and those that control them) is that Trump would freak out and might tell all his followers to storm the Supreme Court anyway.
Ugh, term limits again. What will that do, exactly?
Also, right about the time we get life extension is when someone finally pushes their blessed term limits through, so it will be another antique, outmoded thing to deal with and hard to remove (like the EC).
And if they rule against him, any votes that were cast will be ineligible and won’t be counted. The same as if I had written in someone who was born outside the US, or was under 35 years old. My write-in vote would simply be discarded, because it isn’t for a valid candidate.
But that district court judge, Sarah Wallace, ultimately ruled that Trump could remain on the ballot because she said it was not clear that the drafters or ratifiers of the 14th Amendment intended to cover the presidency in the insurrection clause.
Actually, you totally can. It’s just if you’ve sworn an oath to defend the Constitution and then used the benefits of the position that required that commitment to try to overthrow the government…Then you are not allowed. Any of those J6 morons that hadn’t sworn such an oath are still allowed to hold office.
It was such a ridiculous ruling. We even have the literal discussions from congress when it passed. Someone asked what about president, and another senator replied hey look we said all offices, how much more clear could it be.
From the congressional record at that time:
“Why did you omit to exclude them?” asked Maryland Democratic Sen. Reverdy Johnson. [in reference to president and vice president]
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.
civil is guaranteed right now. it's pretty obvious the basis for denying trump eligibility to join the ballot will not be accepted by the Court. The Article on Insurrection arose out of a civil war, and nothing short of a civil war can give rise to the same basis.
They’re going to find some way to let him run. They’ll overturn the trial judge in it being insurrection, they’ll say the amendment needs legislation to back it up, they’ll say say the word “the” doesn’t really mean “the” like it did in 1492 or some such nonsense. It’ll be 5-4 or 6-3, because the fascist right has the judiciary captured.
America entered the legal phase of fascism during Trumps presidency, and Biden and the democrats weren’t able to correct it during this last best chance to do so. In my humble, ignorant, foreign opinion, this is it, this will be the next step in the long coming codification of fascist rule in America.
Lmfao. You’re saying it’s fascism that the government can’t ban a popular candidate from the ballot of an election. Jesus y’all have lost your minds lol.
Nope, America entered the fascist era with Obama. No, no, I’m still talking about the GOP!!
Fuckers shut down the government TWICE just because they didn’t like a black man as a president. And do you remember this one time when Obama was giving a speech and some Republican idiot shouted “you lie!”?
‘or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States’
well see, the thing is, the presidency is both civil and military… it doesn’t say “and/or” so clearly it’s an exclusive ‘or’ (aka xor) and exempt… - the super ream court
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