relevant snippets from the liberal threesome's Opinion:
In this case, the Court must decide whether Colo-
rado may keep a Presidential candidate off the ballot on the
ground that he is an oathbreaking insurrectionist and thus
disqualified from holding federal office under Section 3 of
the Fourteenth Amendment. Allowing Colorado to do so
would, we agree, create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork,
at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles. That is
enough to resolve this case. Yet the majority goes further.
...
The contrary conclusion that a handful of officials in a
few States could decide the Nation’s next President would
be especially surprising with respect to Section 3. The Re-
construction Amendments “were specifically designed as an
expansion of federal power and an intrusion on state sover-
eignty.” City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 179
(1980). Section 3 marked the first time the Constitution
placed substantive limits on a State’s authority to choose
its own officials. Given that context, it would defy logic for
Section 3 to give States new powers to determine who may
hold the Presidency. Cf. ante, at 8 (“It would be incongru-
ous to read this particular Amendment as granting the
States the power—silently no less—to disqualify a candi-
date for federal office”).
...
Similarly, nothing else in the rest of the Fourteenth
Amendment supports the majority’s view. Section 5 gives
Congress the “power to enforce [the Amendment] by appro-
priate legislation.” Remedial legislation of any kind, how-
ever, is not required. All the Reconstruction Amendments
(including the due process and equal protection guarantees
and prohibition of slavery) “are self-executing,” meaning
that they do not depend on legislation.
...
Section 3 serves an important, though rarely needed, role
in our democracy. The American people have the power to
vote for and elect candidates for national office, and that is
a great and glorious thing. The men who drafted and rati-
fied the Fourteenth Amendment, however, had witnessed
an “insurrection [and] rebellion” to defend slavery. §3.
They wanted to ensure that those who had participated in
that insurrection, and in possible future insurrections,
could not return to prominent roles. Today, the majority
goes beyond the necessities of this case to limit how Section
3 can bar an oathbreaking insurrectionist from becoming
President. Although we agree that Colorado cannot enforce
Section 3, we protest the majority’s effort to use this case to
define the limits of federal enforcement of that provision.
Because we would decide only the issue before us, we concur
only in the judgment.
i'm no legal scholar but the threesome sound like they are saying
either: 1.) there was a better legal way to attempt to remove Trump from
the ballot, or 2.) Congressional legislation could make it so. anyone
better understand the threesome?
Les
On 3/5/24 9:54 AM, David Walters wrote:
The problem is this. The 14th Amendment is a Reconstruction era U.S.
Constitutional amendment that is /flawed/. Designed to prevent the
defeated Confederate officer corp and slavocracy from running in the
elections, it was never intended to go seriously beyond that as
another Civil War was never considered. What we are talking about is
Section 3 of the Amendment:
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.
At no place does it indicate HOW some one is considered to have
committed or engaged in insurrection or rebellion. There simply is no
mechanism to charge someone with violation of this Section. No court
or panel is mentioned. Thus it is left hanging. As Trump was never
convicted of rebellion (he is under indictment for this), he really
can't be kept off the ballot. It would be politically suicidal for the
Democrats if he was kept off the ballot and, indeed, it would also set
a somewhat bad capitalist-electoral precedent if he was.
David
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