{"id":13065,"date":"2024-03-05T14:09:06","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T14:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=13065"},"modified":"2024-03-05T14:09:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T14:09:08","slug":"the-supreme-court-just-crushed-any-hope-that-trump-could-be-removed-from-the-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=13065","title":{"rendered":"The Supreme Court just crushed any hope that Trump could be removed from the ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n\n“The Court\u2019s latest decision, Trump v. Anderson<\/em><\/a>, took on the question of whether a provision of the 14th Amendment, which prevents former high-ranking officials who \u201chave engaged in insurrection or rebellion against<\/a>\u201d the United States from serving in a high office again, disqualifies Trump from office. Their answer is as big a victory as Trump could have hoped for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The five-justice majority opinion does not simply hold that Trump may seek the presidency again, despite his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. It effectively neutralizes this provision of the 14th Amendment altogether \u2014 at least as applied to the 2024 election<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All nine justices agreed that the state of Colorado, whose highest court determined that Trump was disqualified, was not allowed to make this determination. As the Court\u2019s three Democratic appointees write in a cosigned opinion dissenting from the majority\u2019s reasoning, states have limited authority to decide questions that \u201c\u2018implicate a uniquely important national interest\u2019 extending beyond a State\u2019s \u2018own borders.<\/a>\u2019\u201d So the decision whether or not to disqualify Trump should have come from a federal court, or some other federal forum, not from state courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fair enough, but the majority opinion (which is unsigned, and joined by all of the Court\u2019s Republican appointees except for Justice Amy Coney Barrett<\/a>) goes much further than that. It holds that the Constitution \u201cempowers Congress\u201d \u2014 and only Congress \u2014 to determine which individuals are disqualified from public office because they previously engaged in an insurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then it points to a single statute<\/a>, a criminal law that calls for imprisonment and disqualification from office for anyone who \u201cengages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof\u201d as the sole existing vehicle to enforce the 14th Amendment\u2019s anti-insurrection provision. Trump has not yet been charged with violating this law, although he has been charged with violating other federal criminal laws<\/a> because of his alleged attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that any attempt to disqualify Trump is almost certainly dead. Even if special counsel Jack Smith can amend his indictment to bring charges under the insurrection statute, the Court\u2019s decision to slow-walk Trump\u2019s trial<\/a> means that the election will most likely be over before that trial takes place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The courts, it is now crystal clear, are not going to do much of anything to prevent an insurrectionist former president from occupying the White House once again. And the Supreme Court appears to be actively running interference on Trump\u2019s behalf.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/scotus\/2024\/3\/4\/24090163\/supreme-court-donald-trump-anderson-ballot-disqualification-fourteenth-amendment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The Court\u2019s latest decision, Trump v. Anderson, took on the question of whether a provision of the 14th Amendment, which prevents former high-ranking officials who \u201chave engaged in insurrection or rebellion against\u201d the United States from serving in a high office again, disqualifies Trump from office. Their answer is as big a victory as Trump could have hoped for.
\nThe five-justice majority opinion does not simply hold that Trump may seek the presidency again, despite his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol. It effectively neutralizes this provision of the 14th Amendment altogether \u2014 at least as applied to the 2024 election.<\/p>\n

All nine justices agreed that the state of Colorado, whose highest court determined that Trump was disqualified, was not allowed to make this determination. As the Court\u2019s three Democratic appointees write in a cosigned opinion dissenting from the majority\u2019s reasoning, states have limited authority to decide questions that \u201c\u2018implicate a uniquely important national interest\u2019 extending beyond a State\u2019s \u2018own borders.\u2019\u201d So the decision whether or not to disqualify Trump should have come from a federal court, or some other federal forum, not from state courts.<\/p>\n

Fair enough, but the majority opinion (which is unsigned, and joined by all of the Court\u2019s Republican appointees except for Justice Amy Coney Barrett) goes much further than that. It holds that the Constitution \u201cempowers Congress\u201d \u2014 and only Congress \u2014 to determine which individuals are disqualified from public office because they previously engaged in an insurrection.<\/p>\n

Then it points to a single statute, a criminal law that calls for imprisonment and disqualification from office for anyone who \u201cengages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof\u201d as the sole existing vehicle to enforce the 14th Amendment\u2019s anti-insurrection provision. Trump has not yet been charged with violating this law, although he has been charged with violating other federal criminal laws because of his alleged attempt to overthrow the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

This means that any attempt to disqualify Trump is almost certainly dead. Even if special counsel Jack Smith can amend his indictment to bring charges under the insurrection statute, the Court\u2019s decision to slow-walk Trump\u2019s trial means that the election will most likely be over before that trial takes place.<\/p>\n

The courts, it is now crystal clear, are not going to do much of anything to prevent an insurrectionist former president from occupying the White House once again. And the Supreme Court appears to be actively running interference on Trump\u2019s behalf.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.vox.com\/scotus\/2024\/3\/4\/24090163\/supreme-court-donald-trump-anderson-ballot-disqualification-fourteenth-amendment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[790,221,198,1213,528,170],"class_list":["post-13065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-courts","tag-donald-trump","tag-elections","tag-judiciary","tag-supreme-court","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13065"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13066,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13065\/revisions\/13066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}