The case turns on the meaning of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War, which bars those who had taken an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” from holding office if they then “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Oh and just for everyone to remember. The 39th Congress was the one that wrote the 14th Amendment. We weren’t some weeks old nation by that point and we literally have the minutes from that Congress discussing the 14th Amendment.
It’s not some open question as to “does 14A S3 apply to the President”?
— Sen. Reverdy Johnson (D-MD)
— Sen. Lot Morrill (R-MA)
Or does this apply to this instance or just the Civil War.
— Sen. Peter G. Van Winkle (R-WV)
It’s not some “well what did they mean by such-and-such? Oh we have no record of that.” No, no. We literally have the transcript for this one.
The only open question is “does Colorado get to determine if Trump committed an act to disqualify him or not”. We literally have the answer for all the other stuff straight from the mouths of those who framed the 14th Amendment.
“Yes, but who cares what a bunch of old dead politicians from the past think”
- Supreme justices that claim to be consitutionalists.
“Originalists”, not “constitutionalists”.
What’s the distinction? Originalist meaning the original, unamended constitution?
That seems outside their authority. Their purpose, as I understand it, is rule on the letter of the law for the current constitution. The lawmakers, I.E. congress/senate, are who can amend the constitution.
There are different, competing philosophies of judicial interpretation.
The current SCOTUS majority champions “originalism”, which means that judges must apply the meaning intended by whoever wrote a law. This often turns judges into part-time historians, trying to delve into the minds and attitudes of people who are long dead. But in this case, it’s pretty easy to determine that the Reconstructionists who wrote the 14th Amendment had no intention of letting an insurrectionist become president. So “officer” clearly includes the president.
Originalism is in contrast to “textualism”, which means interpreting the actual text(s) of the law without worrying about what the authors intended. So “officer” must be defined according to how it’s used elsewhere in the Constitution, which (surprisingly) may result in something that the authors of the 14th Amendment never intended.
There are also other competing philosophies, but right now these two are in conflict. The interesting thing is that the SCOTUS has to side against Trump if it actually believes in originalism (as opposed to using it as a pretext for their antiquated ideas).
Excellent explanation! Thank you!
They can try to argue that Colorado doesn’t have that right/ability, but:
And in Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, they argued:
Well guess what. The disqualification comes straight from the Constitution itself, and has not been remanded or amended by Congress. Ergo it is the only qualification limitation which matters, and a state is well within its authority to enforce it.
Yeah, but you’re forgetting that the SCOTUS is corrupt and cannot be trusted to fairly evaluate the facts.
Imagine you can be kept off the ballot for being five signatures short of a full page, but doing an insurrection isn’t a good reason. And the individual states can decide on the first thing but not the second. Wild.
This is challenging to search through, mind providing page numbers so I know where to look?