Quick Take On SCOTUS Colorado “Insurrection” Oral Argument: Trump Likely To Stay On Ballot
I’m not sure it’s 9-0, Sotomayor may be a dissent, but it sure is looking like a strong majority if not unanimous result of SCOTUS saying: Not us, not now.
I listened to the SCOTUS oral argument in Anderson v. Trump, the case involving Trump’s disqualification from the Colorado ballot due to his alleged participation in an “insurrection” on January 6, 2021, which the proponents claim automatically disqualifies him under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
Section 3.
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.
***
Section 5.
The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
Making predictions based on oral arguments normally is risky, but I’ll take that risk: The Supreme Court will reverse not on the merits of whether Trump committed insurrection (that is not before them), but on any one of a number of issues raised that the Colorado Supreme Court exceeded it’s authority, including among others,
- Section 3 only bars holding office, not running for office so it’s premature to consider the issue, particularly since Trump could be relieved of any disability by congressional vote after the election but before taking office (I think this is the clear winner);
- Trump (as President) was not an “officer” of the United States and the Office of the President is not enumerated in Section 3;
- Section 3 is not self-executing, congress provides the remedy, and there is a congressional insurrection act under which Trump has not even been charged.
- States don’t get to decide this question, leaving open the possibility of conflicting state rulings.
That’s not a complete catalog, but the high points that jumped out at me.
Even many lefty legal observers see this as a lost cause:
Please God let this NOT be fucking happening right now.
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) February 8, 2024
If I was @Redistrict I'd be at the "I've seen enough" phase. Trump wins 9-0.
But I'll stay here just to make fun of these people for another hour and a half.
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) February 8, 2024
I’m not sure it’s 9-0, Sotomayor may be a dissent, but it sure is looking like a strong majority if not unanimous result of SCOTUS saying: Not us, not now.
MORE TO FOLLOW
Now Kentaji Brown Jackson is destroying Colorado's entire argument:
"They were listing people who were barred [from office under the 14th amendment] and president is not there." pic.twitter.com/UsrvZfpqMD
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 8, 2024
The argument is now over. The disqualification advocates may have expected a cold reception, but this was perfectly glacial. Notably, some of the toughest and most skeptical questions came from the left of the Court.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) February 8, 2024
JUST IN: Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh hits lead attorney Jason Murray, who is trying to keep Trump off the ballot, with a reality check.
“If you're convicted of [an insurrection] you shall be disqualified from holding any office.”
“President Trump has not been charged… pic.twitter.com/O6VyI41iuE
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) February 8, 2024
Overall take based on the oral argument: highly likely DJT wins going away. At least 6-3, more likely 8-1, possibly 9-0. They may not all agree on the same reason for it, but basically they don’t like what Colorado has done. https://t.co/wHS2JHfHeI
— Leslie McAdoo Gordon 🇺🇸 (@McAdooGordon) February 8, 2024
SCOTUS justices across the aisle — including Kagan, Thomas, and Barrett — have questioned states' ability to disqualify federal candidates under the 14th Amendment, Section 3.
Kagan just pressed a lawyer for Trump's challengers on the matter.
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) February 8, 2024
(added)
This is just a bloodbath.
Justice Gorsuch spends two minutes slapping around Colorado's lawyer.
You almost gotta feel bad for the guy. pic.twitter.com/SYcFJLM1EA
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 8, 2024
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Comments
I think they may throw out the findings based on the fact that it was not the right forum to make that finding.
KBJ tied the Colorado attorney in knots. If potus and VP were specifically listed in earlier legislative drafts, but not listed in the final law, then the exclusion is deliberate. The law doesn’t apply to those offices.
100%
The president is not a covered person
Also, people are missing that there are 2 categories for exclusion
1) People who can be disqualified
2) What offices they can be disqualified from
1) A president is not in the list of offices from which his behavior can make the president a disqualifiable person.
2)The office of the presidency is not an office from which any person can be diqualified under the 14th.
Look at the lists, they are separate lists of “who” in one case, and from “which office” can they be disqualified.
Important and real distinction
Leftists only care about legislative history when it gets them to an end. If it doesn’t, they say the history is irrelevant. We need look no further than the moronic doctrine of “selective incorporation” of the Bill of Rights via the 14th Amendment—the framers left written evidence that their intention was to impose the first 8 amendments on states. And what about “birthright citizenship” which no 14th amendment framer believed applied to the children of illegal aliens? It didn’t apply to legal aliens until a later court case, and didn’t apply to Native Americans until congressional legislation in the 1920s. It’s best to assume that any judge is a sophist, in the absence of hard evidence.
They’re democrats, they’ll ignore the SC just like Hawaii did on the 2A when they said the SC interpreted everything wrong in Heller and Bruen.
State supreme courts are bound by the USSC’s interpretation of the US constitution. But they’re not bound to interpret identical words in their state constitutions the same way. This is long-established. Many state courts have held that their state constitution’s provisions that parallel provisions in the Bill of Rights are broader than the US version, and protect more rights than the USSC says the US version does, even though the words are the same. The HI court is therefore entitled to say that its state version of the 2A is narrower than the US version. That doesn’t change the fact that the US version, as interpreted by the USSC, is binding.
“The HI court is therefore entitled to say that its state version of the 2A is narrower than the US version. That doesn’t change the fact that the US version, as interpreted by the USSC, is binding.”
Then what purpose is served by a State court’s interpretation of it’s own constitution when it conflicts (by being narrower) with the right as expounded by SCOTUS? It would seem useless.
The appellant claimed that his rights under the state constitution were being violated, so the court dealt with that claim and showed how it is wrong.
The appellant also claimed that his rights under the US constitution were being violated, and the court dismissed that claim on very different grounds, which fully acknowledged that SCOTUS’s interpretation of the 2A is binding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnZNFA9wT7I&list=TLPQMDgwMjIwMjSC6PJO1mN39w&index=7
BTW Good Logic is discussing it now. He said that Ron Coleman is about to come on.
I think if SCOTUS says you can’t remove him from a ballot because he hasn’t been charged with Insurrection you can expect to see Insurrection charges filed that same week.
That’s how desperate they are.
Very possible. But if they do that, they’re going all in, striking at the king as it were.
And we all know that if you strike you’d best kill him outright, which isn’t likely to happen.
After the 9-0 ruling comes down, will the CO SCOTUS judges be bitch-slspped?
9-0? Nice hope to have. My take is that one of the lefty gals will act as a spoiler. You know, someone has to show the flag sort of thing.
Question is, whether it will be something halfway reasonable )even if wrong and dumb), or simply an emotional screed about Trump shredding the Constitution and trying to overthrow the government and such.
sadly, only figuratively!
This is far Leftist Democrat controlled Colorado in all three branches. It is likely that the CO SCOTUS Justices will get the thanks of the Legislature for trying.
Subotai Bahadur
Following the logic that our host outlined, the states can’t charge Mr. Trump with insurrection — per 14A section 5, that power belongs to the Congress. I used to have the citation of the exact section in the U.S. Code that Congress passed (in 1870, I believe) that fulfills that responsibility. That’s the federal code under which Mr. Trump would have to be charged, and that would require the Dept. of Justice to make the charge.
Not that Merrick Garland isn’t capable of doing something that nefarious, mind you, but it would have to be a federal charge.
I’m imagining Smith and Garland scrambling around like cartoon characters, banging into each other about now.
Comrade Garland could have charged Trump with Inserection, but he did not.
If he thought the charge would have stuck, it would have been charged.
with a DC jury anything on Trump would stick, DC is so corruptly partisan that it would convict Trump of flying the plane into the Pentagon on 9/11, if it had a chance to
That logic, though, means that no amendment with language similar to Section 5 is self-executing, and can only be enforced by Congress and then only as Congress statutorily declares, even it if it contradicts the plain language of the text of the Constitution.
Section 3 does not require a conviction, let alone being charged; the contemporary post-bellum actions of Congress makes that very clear. The idea that Congress can side-step the Constitution by statutory language is a frightening one.
So what you are suggesting is that it only takes an ACCUSATION to be disqualified? That goes against how everything in the entire legal system works. In our system, we find that someone did a thing because they are charged and we have a trial that finds guilt or the lack thereof, that hasn’t happened.
Not even an accusation — just the whim of an unelected bureaucrat.
The question of who can invoke does not equate with requiring an illegal ex post facto statue against ex-Confederates.
No, the question is how false invocations are to be remedied.
The 14th Amendment doesn’t necessarily. But it does require Congress to enable that portion of it. And Trump isn’t disqualified under that enabling legislation.
But the big thing here is that those guilty of actual insurrection when the 14th was written were obvious – those who declared independence from the USA and formed a new country. There wasn’t any question.
That there’s a question now should be the big obstacle to declaring him anathema.
What reading requires enabling legislation for that section but not the rest of the same Amendment?
Huh? That makes no sense at all. Either the entire 14A is self-executing, or none of it is. You can’t just decide on a whim that this clause is and that clause isn’t!
Actually, you are expressly wrong: the USSC in 1869 refused to allow an insurrection charge under 14A, brought by a state, to go forward, precisely because Congress to that point had not acted. That led directly to the 1870 Enforcement Act by Congress.
This was confirmed by Ex Parte Virginia (1879), a USSC decision that provides a very broad scope for the Congress to enforce the 14A, and any other amendment that contains a similar section. Subsequent rulings have made clear that it is Congress that enforces section 3, not the states.
Section 3 is not self-executing. Nice try.
A legal charge and disqualification are not the same thing. The Reconstruction Congress disagreed with your view.
I assume you’re referring to Caesar Griffin’s challenge to his conviction for assault with intent to kill, on the grounds that the judge in his case was automatically removed from office the moment the 14A became part of the constitution.
1. That is not a supreme court decision.
2. It relies on the “spirit” of the ex-post-facto law clause, arguing that although constitutional amendments are obviously not bound by the constitution, and can impose ex-post-facto penalties, the ratifiers of the 14A probably didn’t mean to do so, so they probably didn’t mean to automatically remove thousands of people from the offices they currently held, and they probably meant merely that Congress could make a law firing those people. This has no relevance to disqualifying people from future office.
3. It also relies on the disruption that firing all those people immediately and with no notice would cause, arguing that if a provision can be interpreted two ways, and one of them causes chaos while the other doesn’t, courts should go with the second way. Again this has no relevance to a case occurring 165 years after the amendment was ratified. No chaos would be caused by the court saying now that the amendment is self-executing.
Ex-Parte Viriginia doesn’t say it’s not self-executing either. (It’s also not about section 3.) It does say that without an act of congress the federal judiciary would not have the power to enforce the 14th amendment, e.g. by striking down racist state laws, but once congress passed a valid act the courts could enforce that. But that’s dicta. The upshot was that the arrest of a racist state judge for violating a federal civil rights law was valid.
I don’t believe simply charging him with insurrection would be sufficient.
No they’d have to have that schmuck judge up in New York to declare him guilty without a trial
“I think if SCOTUS says you can’t remove him from a ballot because he hasn’t been charged with Insurrection you can expect to see Insurrection charges filed that same week.”
Maybe they will. That is the logical next step. Given the jury pool in DC, I am somewhat surprised that they haven’t tried yet. In light of the January 6 trials that have occurred, and the recent Mark Steyn judgment (where is LI’s story on that travesty, by the way?), I think they have a greater than 50/50 shot at getting a conviction against DJT on a federal insurrection charge.
Ty Professor… great explanation, in plain language..
We shouldn’t even be here, having this discussion.
And that’s the problem. Democrats are willing to burn the house down in order to seize and control power. Which leads to the question: What’s next?
They will not accept an unfavorable ruling and that makes me fear for Mr. Trump’s life.
My immediate thought, this is tortured logic and the attorney was twisting himself into knots trying to make the 14th Amendment say what it doesn’t, typical outcome-based argument; decide the result then rework the language to make that occur.
More infuriating is when pressed he followed up by tap dancing around the obvious answer (which was the opposite of his asinine argument. These people are deranged, including Jena Griswold, a total Lefty with an axe to grind who was installed to do this sort of thing. Denver (includes the Statehouse), Boulder, Fort Collins, and Pueblo run roughshod over the entire state, which is 85% rural…and it’s getting old.
Pray they aren’t that stupid.
JF Kennedy, they did it. Thye managed to hide it. Now we know. Would a repeat trigger a civil war?
The probability that the SC will allow lower State courts to usurp what they see as their power is zero point zero.
Wouldn’t ruling that Section 3 isn’t self-executing due to Section 5 and the existence of legislation, mean that not only Sections 1, 2, and 4 of the 14th Amendment, but also the 13th, 15th, 19th, 23rd, 24th, and 25th (also formerly the 18th) not be self-executing either.
If enforcement and effect is entirely up to statutory language, then wouldn’t that apply to all other Amendments and sections of the 14th that have that clause? Does this mean that DC can be denied electoral votes if Congress simply deletes the enabling statutory language, or that poll taxes become allowed if statutory language is deleted? Can states infringe on the privileges and immunities if Congress didn’t explicitly say so in statutory language?
Nothing in the language of Section 3 requires a conviction, and no statutory language can change the Constitution itself.
I feel that people are trying to shape their Constitutional interpretation to fit their desired political ends.
Section 5 of the 14th only applies to the 14th. My understanding of the 14th in order to charge someone with insurrection congress has to declare a state of insurrection which it has not done. Declaring a state of insurrection in my view 18 U.S. Code § 2383 to charge under 18 U.S. Code section 2383
It means that an act of Congress is not necessary for it to be in effect. Same for the rest of the 14th Amendment, any other Amendment, or even the original text of the Constitution.
The 14th was passed after Andrew Johnson pardoned Confederates like Jefferson Davis. Soon after the 14th was passed, Johnson gave blanket immunity. By your logic, no Confederate could ever be barred. However, Congress during and after Reconstruction continued to give amnesties to most ex-Confederates while not removing this disability to other Confederates. Heck, Jefferson Davis was barred for over a century despite not only never having been convicted but even pardoned by Andrew Johnson and thus immune from an insurrection conviction.
A potential parallel would be the Section 1 citizenship clause. The text lays out who is automatically a citizen, regardless of what Congress says. Similar to Section 3, Congress has reiterated that and expanded beyond that (which they could and had done before the 14th Amendment)… but they can not add additional qualifications to limit it.
The 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th all contain the exact same clause. If section 5 makes the 14th not self-executing, then the same clauses in all those other amendments make them not self-executing either.
(The 23rd has the same language, but it is clearly not self-executing. The 18th had the same language, giving the power concurrently to congress and the states. But it is no longer part of the constitution.)
That is not correct.
Also, the crime of insurrection is not based on 14A. 14A does not authorize congress to ban insurrection, nor does it need to. Congress had already banned it decades earlier.
Also, 18 USC 2838 is not an implementation of 14A § 3.
1. It applies to people who are not covered by 14A, i.e. people who had not taken an oath before their insurrection.
2. It only bars insurrectionists from appointed federal office, not from elected office and not from state office.
Please explain to this nave, what “self executing” means?
Self-executing means that it is in effect merely by being in the constitution, and doesn’t require Congress to make a law enforcing it.
Here’s an example of a constitutional clause that is clearly self-executing: “No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation”. The moment the constitution was ratified, that became the law. It didn’t require Congress to make a law forbidding the states from making their own private treaties with foreign countries, and Congress can’t make a law permitting states to do so.
Here’s an example that’s clearly not self-executing: “The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President […]”. That says clearly that it doesn’t take effect until Congress has directed the manner in which these electors shall be appointed. If Congress never bothered doing so, then those three seats on the electoral college would remain vacant. And if Congress ever repeals its law providing for those seats to be filled by election, they will remain vacant.
The question is whether the 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th amendments are self-executing.
The argument that they are is obvious: The constitution says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” It doesn’t say “… shall exist, should Congress so provide”.
The argument that they are not is less obvious: All of these amendments contain a clause saying, with slight and irrelevant variations: “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” The argument is that since Congress was explicitly given the power to enforce these provisions, that is the only way they can be enforced, so slavery remained legal even after the 13A was ratified, until Congress made a law against it. And if Congress should ever repeal that law, slavery would become legal again, even though the constitution says “slavery … shall not exist”.
Likewise, the argument goes, if someone figures out a way to have slaves without violating the statute Congress passed, not only can’t they be punished, which is fair enough, but the slaves can’t be freed, even though the constitution says “slavery … shall not exist”.
That’s one of the arguments Trump’s supporters make. I don’t agree with it. I agree that Trump is eligible for the presidency, for many different reasons, but not for that one.
That the Constitution prohibits slavery is self-evident. The effect (to outlaw slavery) of the amendment was immediate (and might be called “self executing”), but legislation was necessary for its enforcement. A person can’t be tried or convicted for a crime without a statute criminalizing the act or behavior.
Section 3 “self-executes” only insofar that the moment someone (who is subject to the section) is convicted of insurrection he becomes immediately disqualified from holding certain offices. But neither the State nor the federal government can bar a person from office under the section without first providing the “due process of law” required elsewhere in the Constitution (including section 1 of the 14th Amendment, which imposes the requirement upon the States).
That is incorrect. Due process of law is only required in order to deprive someone of life, liberty, or property. It is not required in order to disqualify someone from office.
And totally unrelated (wink, wink): the Supreme Court of Hawaii just ruled that:
Just like that. They think they have the right to ignore SCOTUS rulings.
So, they are not just willing to burn down the house. After the fire they will use a bulldozer to flatten the dirt and remove the ashes, and with it, any vestige of the America we know and love.
Not a surprise in the least. I lived in Hawaii for quite a few years and I was a cop on Honolulu PD. The powers that be are doing everything they can to water down the 2nd Amendment in the “Aloha” State.
Yep! The ridiculous hoops I had to jump through to purchase my first gun, a .22 caliber Ruger 10-22 rifle, while I lived in Hawaii is what made me such a 2nd Amendment advocate!
And what are the odds of a Leftist Federal government taking any steps against a Leftist state that is deliberately ignoring and subverting the Constitution? Watch what happens to the other 9 Amendments that make up the Bill of Rights.
Subotai Bahadur
No, they don’t. They are not ignoring it at all. The 2A applies in full force in HI. They are interpreting a clause in the state constitution, and that is entirely in their authority. SCOTUS cannot tell them what their state constitution means, and it hasn’t tried to.
They hold that in Hawaiʻi there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public. That doesn’t affect the federal constitutional right to do so.
In other words, Hawaii can claim that they have no right to keep and bear arms in their state constitution at all, and it doesn’t matter, because they still get the federal right imposed upon them and their residents are covered by it regardless of how Hawaii feels about it.
The highest court in Massachusetts ruled decades ago that the federal Second Amendment was a vague collective (not personal) right, therefore, no Massachusetts citizen was covered by it. The minute McDonald was decided, that nonsense got trashcanned and they had to rearrange their system to accommodate it.
SCOTUS’ opinion of the rights of citizens is the law in Hawaii. The 14th Amendment makes it so. What purpose is there in the state court pointing out the State’s own constitution doesn’t guarantee the right when it doesn’t have a choice to disallow its exercise?
The purpose is very simply that the appellant claimed his rights under the state constitution were violated, so the court had to deal with that claim.
Seems to me that the Supremacy Clause prevails over Hawai’i’s “Aloha spirit” (whatever the hell that is!). What I found amusing in the Hawai’i Supreme Court’s ruling is the constant reference to Kamehameha’s “Broken Paddle” Law and the insistence that somehow it still applied, despite the fact that when Hawai’i became a state, it basically left all of its former Royal laws behind as a condition of becoming a state, if my reading of the Supremacy Clause is correct.
I’ve always thought Hawai’ians were too smug for their own good, especially when they throw around “haole” too much, but are perfectly willing to accept tourist dollars. In this case, they went too far, and their “ahole” Supreme Court should be reversed by the first Federal District Judge that receives that appeal.
Since the “aloha spirit” law only applies to interpreting state law, the supremacy clause is irrelevant.
The HI court did not claim that the 2A doesn’t apply in HI, or that in HI it means something different from what it means in the other 49 states. It was addressing only the claim about the state constitution.
No, they don’t. How can you make such a claim, when you yourself quoted the text that clearly shows your claim is not true? “We hold that in Hawaiʻi there is no state constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.” SCOTUS has never ruled that there is such a state constitutional right in Hawaii. It can’t rule that.
Case at least shows how desperate the Marxists are to keep Trump out of office, there will be plans 2, 3, and 4 coming.
Election day riots, most likely, since early votes tend (D) and day-of votes tend (R).
I think more likely is a new pandemic so severe that it makes C-19 look like an exercise. If nobody can vote in person, they can game the vote with ease.
Pandemic is too predictable. I can hardly wait to see what stunt may be pulled.
Ah, what a wonderful world it would be if voters received the same level of judicial support and police protection as abortion enthusiasts going into Planned Parenthood abattoirs…
They are getting rabidly desperate, and the optics are moronic.
I think Roberts will rule it is a tax issue and have Trump removed from the ballot/s
The FBI has completely destroyed their credibility. They will never again be a respected law enforcement agency. The Federal Judiciary is getting ready to jump off that same cliff.
here’s another credibility destroyer, as if the swamp cares
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13062835/joe-biden-classified-documents-garage-private-office-investigation-not-charged.html
I can barely contain my excitement of anticipation for the next boob show.
look the left wins no matter what
the local cities across america are at best running left of center
the big cities are already lefttt of center
the mayors of those towns know to send any “new” americans into the ‘burbs to turn them blue
and with the fleeing of liberals from CA across the country you know whats going to happen to those red states 🙂
IN FACT,, IRONICALLY ,ONE OF THE BIGGEST HOPES
is that the family centric latino community will vote gop
but it wont be the gop that is fiscally conservative
it will be the NEW gop that votes for parental leave and other socialist programs
“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.”
schumer and the others who have called for violence against the scouts and defunding of the police 10000% DEFINE THE need to remove THEM from office
“Trump (as President) was not an “officer” of the United States and the Office of the President is not enumerated in Section 3”
I think that that particular argument does not hold water.
Because Section 3 does not specify particular USA offices. It applies generally to “any office” under the USA. While Senators and Repersentatives are named, Senators and Representatives in Congress are not officers under the USA, so they are called out specifically in addition to holders of any office under the USA.
Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection and Other Rights:
“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.”
As noted, Senators and Representatives are NOT officers of the USA. See,
USA Constitution, Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2:
“No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.”
In an excellent article here,
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f6103f36b5eee6bf0ab2c1d/t/61bfe1e7f415793ae6492815/1639965161489/15.1_Blackman_Final+12.16.21.pdf
the authors come to a different conclusion:
“I think that that particular argument does not hold water.”
Everything ELSE you wrote (all of which I agree with) contradicts this one sentence. Did you perhaps negate this sentence by mistake?
Hmm. It seems that something that is a routinely ignored as the oath of office is integral to the application of laws and statutes…
My take?
It’s going down 7-2 or 8-1, but the liberals will all band together and write their own ‘concurring’ opinion in which they scream and cry and whine that Trump TOTALLY DID engage in Literal Insurrection, but that a court has to actually convict him of that before they can remove him from the ballot.
Then they will act like it is they who are the victims, and then whip their base up into a frenzy justified by their moral outrage to destroy their next target.
Agree, Olinser, they will try to force Congress’ hand in the Electoral Count Act in some manner. The Dems will use that as a pretext to challenge, just like they have EVERY Republican since GHWB. I can just read the dissenting opinion of the Wide Latina right now, full of self-righteous indignation and invective, short on fact and full of intestinal gas and sulfur.
Hold on. Let’s be honest. Outside of some deranged corrupt, TDS stricken, yet well founded and vocal, few, this was never a difficult question. Childishly simple. There are other problems looming, this ain’t one.
But it becomes one if the SCOTUS justices don’t agree that this WAS a childishly simple question. Anything but a 9-0 decision is evidence of a serious problem.
HB:
When has the Wide Latina ever been anything BUT a problem? I am Latino, and believe me—she is NOT respected within the greater Latino community despite what the lying media may tell you.
Jason Murray got his dick slapped worse than the procedural masturbation he went through trying to convince a SCJ that Trump committed an insurrection that he was never charged with, let alone convicted of.
Gorsuch basically told him that he was out of his league.
I guess he needs to go back to handling slip and fall cases, and that may be a bit tough for him.
Completely agree that Jason “Skippy the Mall Storefront Attorney” got his ass handed to him by the Justice for whom he used to clerk. It was rather funny listening to Murray saying “NO, Justice….”, only to get another boot in his posterior when being told, “Set that aside!”, as though Murray was in some kind of argument in law school. That kid was so far out of his league, he might as well have just put his tail in between his legs and run. The Colorado Solicitor General was just as awful. When both lost KBJ, perhaps the least experienced on SCOTUS, and I have to admit here that she really asked some sharp questions, that was the sign to me that the case was lost.
For FoxNews:
Why didn’t they put the word ‘president’ in the very enumerated list in Section 3?” Brown asked Colorado voters’ lawyer Jason Murray. “The thing that really is troubling to me is I totally understand your argument, but they were listing people that were barred and ‘president’ is not there. And so I guess that just makes me worry that maybe they weren’t focusing on the president.”
I answer. Mrs. Brown, it’s simple. An insurrection is an armed attack on the executive power. Otherwise it is a pointless act. And the president, Mrs. Brown, is the executive branch. The Constitution simply assumes that the President of the United States will never be an idiot who starts an insurrection against himself.
Let me also remind you that on January 6, 2021, Donald Trump was the President of the USA. In such a state of affairs, it should be considered that the US judicial system has already degenerated into the Sanhendrin.
There’s a simpler answer as to why “president” didn’t make the list – the amendment was written to specifically address a problem caused by the recent Civil War. There was no president or vice-president who “insurrected,” so there was no need to include any such officials in the list of those subject to the section.
Note that I’m not saying the amendment is a dead-letter today. I believe that even though it was meant to address a very specific situation, there’s nothing in the language that would prevent its enforcement today. But its enforcement must be limited now to none other than those persons and officials it applied to at the time of its ratification.
(To DaveGinOly)
I don’t think you understood. Insurrection makes no sense if it is directed against the executive (federal) branch. The authors of the 14th Amendment assumed that an idiot who would incite an insurrection in order to take over the power he already had would never become the President of the United States. Because, let me remind you, the President of the United States is the only executive (federal) authority of the United States
Correction. An insurrection makes no sense unless it is directed against the executive (federal) power.
whats the point you are trying to make?
the election was thought stolen by all the evidence that occurred that was dismissed by the censoring msm and all the left had was trump saying
fight for your rights
so they held that word against trump
and then illegally held trespassers ALONGGGG with some violent people in
prison without due process and/or a swift and speedy trial
ITS CALLED
JOB SECURITY
for the SCOTUS
with a Trump presidency
the flow of challenges to the court will be unrelenting as the lefty rino attack squads pull in $$$$$$$$$$$ to further hurt america and help their commienazi buddies
plus
the scotus ..SOME JUSTICES proved that they lived in fear of the left
by not ruling on the obvious malfeasance of the PA voting scandal in 2020s election
they refused to look at that as the outing of people was in full gear
now that the left has proven that might will defeat right
its not going to look better for america