Almost as important as the content of this week’s Supreme Court decision was its speed. The justices rushed to review the Colorado Supreme Court’s Dec. 19 ruling that Trump was ineligible under the Constitution’s “insurrection clause.” So their opinions arrived the day before the Super Tuesday nomination contest.This will allow voters to choose between all Candidates do not have to worry about their preferred option being eliminated by the general election. The country could benefit from similar speed on another issue the high court is considering: Trump’s weak claim of immunity from criminal prosecution.
Most important, of course, was the content of the Fourteenth Amendment. The idea that an arcane Civil War-era clause could be used to remove Trump from presidential politics was a little too good to be true. The arguments in favor contained several flaws. Does the Insurrection Clause apply to the office of the president, rather than the “office” explicitly named by the president? Were the rules against rebels returning to power in Washington, approved immediately after the Civil War, already erased by the Amnesty Act of 1872? Was the former president an insurrectionist? Who should decide? As it happens, the Supreme Court didn’t have to worry about these complex issues. The justices wisely turned to federalism instead.
Because the framers designed the office of president to be a uniquely national office, it is difficult to believe that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment may have intended the qualification to be subject to a de facto national veto. It makes little sense. Therefore, the justices noted, the existence and function of federal employees “owes to the united voice of the nation as a whole, not just a section of the nation.” They warned against the “patchwork” that would result from allowing different states with different rules to make different decisions about whether to run for Congress.
Even more compelling is the judge’s placement of these lessons in historical context. The Fourteenth Amendment was drafted in the wake of the false “states’ rights” rebellion, and at its core was a rebalancing of power between the states and the federal government, limiting the former. It was intended to strengthen the latter. “It would be strange to interpret this particular amendment as giving states the power to silently disqualify candidates for federal office,” they wrote.
To be sure, the court’s unanimity was not perfect. In a disgruntled joint opinion, liberals Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed their conservative colleagues to limit their rationale to federalism. accused of refusing to do so. Instead, the court’s majority opinion further stated: no one Section 3 can be enforced against Anyone Absent an Act of Congress specifying in detail who this provision disqualifies. The three liberals called this judicial overreach aimed at “insulating this court and the petitioners” from future political flare-ups.
They have a point. The Fourteenth Amendment is far from clear on this issue, and it would be even harder to adopt the Third Amendment if only Congress could do it. For example, the court leaves no room for Congress to refuse to certify the election of an alleged insurrectionist, nor does the court leave room for the court to consider a lawsuit against the president or his appointees for wrongful assumption of office. . Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was appointed by President Trump, agreed with the liberals. But what she objected to was the “rigor” with which the three men expressed their reasoning in a short agreement that read more like a blog post than a legal opinion. “All nine justices agree on the outcome of this case. That’s the message Americans should take home.”
Judge Barrett may not have been the right messenger – spin is not part of the court’s job description – but it was the right message. The Supreme Court, which was often sharply divided, managed to reach the same conclusion. The argument is that, among other things, the 14th Amendment does not give states the power to cull presidential votes. This was a blow to both federalism and democracy – ironic given Trump’s own anti-democratic tendencies. It remains clear how to prevent his comeback. It’s about voting.