Whatever.In their decision, the justices ruled that states should not have unilateral power to disqualify candidates for federal office — but that state offices are another matter.
Politico
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.“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.
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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
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.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.
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[SCOTUS] concluded that Congress has exclusive authority to enforce the provision.
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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.
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“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
But what is the Rogers court if not "deeply inconsistent"?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.
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"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.
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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.
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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
I think we all know the answer to that.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.MSN
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.
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
“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
That was the bet most people I was reading were making.I was certain that the Supreme Court would deny the application to stay the DC Circuit Court’s mandate affirming Judge Chutkan’s ruling that presidents aren’t, in fact, kings; a move that would have brought the DC trial back to life.
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If they knew they were going to want to rule on the merits, why didn’t they grant cert in December. Applying the same expedited briefing schedule they did today, oral arguments would have taken place this week. As it stands now, oral arguments are set for April 22nd - almost two months from now. And why did it take over a week to grant cert? That only made sense if they were going to deny the stay and someone was writing a dissent or concurrence.
Mueller, She Wrote
More speculation that has no basis in reality for this court.The best case is that they hear this April 22nd, and take about two to three weeks to issue a ruling (going by the Nixon tapes timeline).
Yes, we are in a doom loop that will suck the life out of us.Of course, Bush v Gore took FOUR DAYS to decide, but that was to seat a republican, so I don’t have much faith in them working that fast. If they take two or three weeks to decide, and we add the 88 days that existed between the pause of the DC proceedings and the trial date, that puts the trial date sometime in late July/early August. Jack Smith has said the trial is expected to take 3 months, and in this scenario, we would have a verdict before the election.
However, Judge Luttig has posited that because they agreed to hear this case on the merits, that there is at least one justice that disagrees with the DC Circuit’s ruling, and he doesn’t see how the case could be decided by the end of this term - which is around July 1st. Any ruling coming later than May could put the trial past the election.
In another scenario, the Supreme Court could make a ruling that remands further review back to the District Court (Judge Chutkan), and anything she decides could be appealed by trump and we’re all the way back at the beginning.
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[T]he Supreme Court said today that the question they are going to decide is “Whether, and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”
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I can envision a scenario where the Justices decide that presidents DO sometimes have immunity over official acts, but remand to Judge Chutkan to determine whether what trump did is an official act, and whether the crimes alleged in the indictment could be subject to presidential immunity. Any ruling she would make would then be subject to the entire appeals process again.
That's more faith in the court than I have. They've been meddling in presidential elections (with bad rulings) since Bush v. Gore, and that was before they had three Trump nominees.But what should we make of the use of the word alleged. Alleged by whom? First, the Supreme Court by law has to take everything in the indictment as fact. Jack Smith has said that these crimes are NOT official acts. So it seems that “alleged” here means that TRUMP is alleging - which, as Lisa Rubin says, gives into trump’s reframing of the question.
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Another thing to consider is that once the ruling is issued - and I’m still sure the Supreme Court will agree that trump isn’t immune - Judge Chutkan could truncate the 88 days needed to prepare for trial.
I’m very disappointed in the ruling today, but it’s not over until it’s over, and Alvin Bragg’s criminal trial is set to begin March 25th.
On the other hand, that could be good news for Trump by virtue of him whining loudly and publicly that he's being persecuted in an attempt to keep him from winning, bringing out more rubes to vote for him.In fact, by taking up the immunity question and keeping the case on hold in the meantime, the justices have all but guaranteed that Trump cannot stand trial on the federal election charges until the waning weeks of campaign season, at the earliest.
If that happens, Trump may have to juggle courtroom appearances with debates and swing state speeches. The trial, which is expected to last several months, could even overlap with Election Day itself.
Politico
