14th Amendment ruling

And there it is:

“Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the states, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse,’’ Monday’s ruling stated.

[...]

The court has moved less quickly to resolve Trump’s separate claim of presidential immunity from prosecution. As a result, the criminal trial over his role on Jan. 6 may not be held until after the November election.

Last week, the court announced it would hear Trump’s immunity claim, setting arguments for the week of April 22. Under that schedule, the justices are not likely to rule before June.

  LA Times

There was no need to rush this out today, other than it will help Trump tomorrow on Super Tuesday.  He was already on the primary ballot in Colorado due to the stay.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 02:33 pm:

All nine justices sided with Trump on Monday by preserving his status on the ballot, reversing a lower court’s decision that disqualified him in Colorado under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection ban because of his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.

[...]

[SCOTUS] concluded that Congress has exclusive authority to enforce the provision.

[...]

Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the court’s three liberals criticized their five conservative colleagues for going further than they needed to in resolving Trump’s case by also determining that the only way for the 14th Amendment to be enforced is through a statute by Congress.

“This suit was brought by Colorado voters under state law in state court. It does not require us to address the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which Section 3 can be enforced,” Barrett, Trump’s last appointee to the high court, wrote in a concurring opinion.

[...]

“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,” wrote Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

They invoked the chief justice’s opinion in the Supreme Court’s recent landmark abortion case, when Roberts criticized his conservative colleagues for going beyond merely upholding the Mississippi abortion restrictions at issue to completely eviscerate Roe v. Wade.

The trio also referenced retired Justice Stephen Breyer’s dissent when the court decided Bush v. Gore in 2000, in which Breyer wrote, “[w]hat it does today, the Court should have left undone.”

  The Hill

When it doesn't matter, Barrett's there. And nobody's going to hear the dissents anyway. They're just going to hear 9-0 in favor of keeping Trump on the ballot.

On second thought, she's not REALLY there.

What SCOTUS did NOT do...

In a unanimous ruling, the nine justices agreed that an individual state shouldn't be able to choose who gets to run for the White House.

However, the court not only split over how the disqualification clause should be enforced but also opted out of weighing in on whether or not Trump engaged in insurrection, despite having the chance to do so.

[...]

"That by itself sends a powerful message underlining that every fact finder to address the question [of insurrection] has found that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection," he said.

[...]

Former Acting Solicitor General of the United States Neal Katyal agreed that while Monday's ruling was a win for Trump, it failed to do what the former president had asked—clear him of insurrection—and because of this, it could signal bad news down the road.

[...]

Noting that the court took 25 days to issue Monday's decision, Katyal argued that it would be "deeply inconsistent" if the justices took anything longer than that to rule on the immunity case.

  Newsweek

But what is the Rogers court if not "deeply inconsistent"?

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) argued that the U.S. Supreme Court passed the buck Monday by ruling that it’s up to Congress to enforce the 14th Amendment that would ban Donald Trump from ever holding office again.

Raskin told CNN’s Dana Bash that House Democrats plan to do just that, and he’s leading the effort to bring the 14th Amendment argument to the House floor.

[...]

And so I am working with a number of my colleagues, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Eric Swalwell, to revive legislation that we had to set up a process by which we could determine that someone who committed insurrection is disqualified by section three of the 14th Amendment.

And the House of Representatives already impeached Donald Trump for participating in insurrection by inciting it. So the House has already pronounced upon that, and there was also a 57 to 43 vote in the Senate. The question is whether Speaker Mike Johnson would allow us to bring this to the floor of the House.

  MSN

I think we all know the answer to that.

That's not what Trump is telling people, and that's not what MAGA will believe.

Can I get an "Amen"?

And Clarence can just thumb his nose at us.  There's no legal or practical recourse for us, he has no shame, and he's there for life.

UPDATE 03:13 pm:

UPDATE 03/05/2024:

This claim [is] that Section 3 is not “self-executing” but rather requires congressional action to be applied by any court, which would be in keeping with prevalent historical practice.

But it’s well-established that the powerhouse equal protection and due process provisions in Section 1 of the same amendment have great force without regard to congressional action. It’s hard to see how that principle could stand if the court found that Section 3 has no such force on its own. This argument could also encourage a future Democratic Congress to disqualify Trump from holding office.

  LA Time