States rights!!! Sometimes.
“It’s nit for us to decided. It’s up to the Republican controlled Congress to decide to allow Trump and any other Republican candidate and not allow Democrat candidates the same luxury.”
They want to leave it to states’ rights when it benefits them. Then they want it to Republican-controlled groups.
LMAO see it come in since months ago, finally they did it…
Good. Democracy means that it can be democratically dissolved. If you’re holding on to a piece of paper written by slave owners to save your democracy, then you’ve missed the point of democracy.
If a majority of voters want racist, sexist fascism, that’s what you’ll get. No amount of social media posts will change that. Ask the slaves, Indigenous Peoples, women, poor men, non-Christians, and children of the United States for the majority of its history.
Well that would be great if we had a democracy. No Republican has won the popular vote for something like 20 years, but we’ve had more than one Republican president since then.
Voting is super important, but we also need a better democracy because we know the majority don’t want a bigot in office. But we’re still getting one every couple years
Yeah GW Bush won in 88 and since then there’s only been one GOP population vote win when W won in the middle of the war in 04. Only one republican win in the past 35 years, and this coming election will be no different. There’s no way in hell the popular vote goes against Biden in November.
The United States is HUGE. Do you feel like population centers should get to dictate the terms to everyone that doesn’t live in a populous state? If so, then, again: vote. If you don’t like the current election process then change it.
You Americans complain so much about your electoral processes, but you do nothing to change them.
You get bigots and violent offenders in office either way you cut it. Obama normalized the massive, largely remote kill operations in non-battlefield engagements. He authorized the death of several thousand people exclusively through remote kill actions. As he noted himself, “turns out I’m really good at killing people. Didn’t know that was going to be my strong suit.”
The popular vote for an overpowered executive isn’t the answer. And I think you know that. The answer is harder and requires more work. But it’s nice to think it’s just about voting once every four years to fix it, isn’t it?
Good luck.
I mean, the whole argument hinges on the fact that the procedures around Section 3 are ambiguous, but clearly since states haven’t tried to do it themselves before, that means they obviously don’t have the authority. So, the precedent exists not because it actually exists in some ordinary, mundane, definable way, but because it can be inferred to exist by the fact that it doesn’t exist.
May as well have signed it in crayon, too.
They have done this before tho. Scotus is corrupt and illegitimate.
It doesn’t really make any sense, the SCOTUS expects congress to vote on enforcing laws that they passed 150 years ago every time the issue comes up? Why? They already voted.
Many of there recent ruling use that logic, like the epa one that says the must be hyper specific. Ending the ablity of the government to functio is the core goal of republican party.
This is a bit more than just that, though, it was a 9-0 ruling. There really is no more faith to be had in the court as a whole.
So what happens if the states continue to keep him off the ballot? Does the federal government take over their elections, or do they refuse to recognize the electors?
The supreme clowns are giving an opinion and states are already starting to ignore their opinions. What happens if the states ignore this and say their state rights exceed here?
What a mystery! Who knows what happens when States try and assert their “State’s Rights” to ignore the federal government, it’s never happened ever in American history, thank you for asking such a deep and intellectually thought-out question!
/s
The bigger news isn’t that he’s back on the ballot, but the 5-4 split within the unanimous ruling.
They unanimously agreed that a state Court can’t ban someone from election to a federal office based on federal rules. There’s something to be said for that, which is why the liberal justices were all on board with it.
The 5-4 split with the separate opinions, however, was Thomas, Alito, Robert’s, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch saying that federal courts also can’t ban someone from holding office for insurrection even if convicted of the crime in a federal court.
They’re setting up Trump to be eligible to be elected President even if he loses the insurrection trial prior to the election. They’re saying only Congress can ban him from office for insurrection.
The liberal justices wrote a heated rebuke of that in their concurring opinion, and Barrett sided with the liberals, but scolded the liberals for being too mean about it in her standalone concurring opinion.
Did anyone read the opinions?
Did any one read the Constitution?
Trump doesn’t qualify as an insurrectionist. Just as if he was 34
MidasTouch on YouTube does good analyses of such things
What happened to State’s Rights? Oh, they server m didn’t benefit you. Got it.
What happened to upholding the constitution? He is literally barred from office for his crimes, and his legal defence was that he did those crimes but it shouldn’t disbar him (even though it very clearly does).
It’s so wild that the ‘but the people have democratic rights to choose among candidates’ crowd invoke that argument to make the candidate that’s promised to end democracy and rights one of the options they can vote for
You know, because democracy
And also, he never won on the people’s democratic right to choose among candidates. Hillary did. He won because the president is chosen by the states, not the people. Don’t like it? Abolish the electoral college.
Abolish electoral college is not the answer to these issues. Unless you have a new idea in mind. Electoral college is better than using popular vote. It helps prevent fraud from any one particular state.
Except this assinine system only exists in 'murica, which also happens to be the country where democracy doesn’t work.
How so? And does that outweigh the negatives and weaknesses we’ve seen in the electoral college system over the past 2 election cycles?
I was mostly curious those that want to abolish it what their alternative solution is.
Under popular vote, DeSantis is still running and maybe now he gets 63 billion votes from Florida alone. The impact of this fraud (there are not 63 billion ppl voting in Florida) is bigger with no electoral college.
Other countries don’t have EC bc other counties don’t have our state and government structure.
Yall do you. I’m not very political anyway.
Popular vote works pretty well, that’s how we run every other election.
If you didn’t know, the electoral college is a holdover from when slave states wanted to keep political control away from the North, where the population was rapidly growing while the South was falling apart.
How exactly does it prevent fraud?
What I don’t understand about the ruling is that congress has already exercised their power. Donald Trump was impeached by congress in 2021 for inciting an insurrection. The states are only enforcing the law based on the ruling a of the House of Representatives and a majority of the Senate.
Removal from office takes a supermajority in the Senate, so maybe disqualification via the 14th does as well. That would presumably depend on Senate rules that currently don’t cover it.
A simple majority ought to be sufficient, but it also ought to be sufficient for just about everything, but it’s not.
14th didn’t say that
14th didn’t say it’s up to Congress either. The Supreme Court said that, and now it’s up to Congress to decide what that looks like. The constitution lets the legislative bodies setup their own rules for how a lot of things function.
If the Supes said it without merit then it can be ignored. Ban him from the ballot anyway.
I’m not sure I even disagree with the idea that it needs to be done at the Federal level. If individual states can do it, then Republicans will start declaring that everything they don’t like is an insurrection (as their rhetoric already does on many issues) and remove Democrats from ballots.
Whether that means it has to be the legislature and what that looks like are different questions.
So we’re just gonna allow a corrupt party to simply decide what words mean on their own?
Hold up, George Orwell on line three…
This was actually a 9-0 decision. Being a cynic is definitely justified by the state of our government, but you should have some ideas what your being cynical about.
I don’t like the guy, but I like even less the government deciding to take candidates off the ballot.
The opinion: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf
We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.
Think of it this way. It’s not that the government is trying take an eligible person off the ballot, but it’s clarifying the ineligibility criterion.
If the person committed a crime that exempts them from the ballot- I absolutely want them removed.
If conservatives want to try and prove innocent men and women need to be removed- I want them to try it in court.
Denying the ability to follow the law outright out of fear of what the other side will do is essentially negotiating with terrorists.
To be fair, the government has always set criteria for being on the ballot. For example, to be US president you have to be at least 35, a natural citizen, and have live in the states for at least 14 years.
Not being an insurrectionist is also part of that criteria. We’ve just never had a presidential candidate that has needed us to consider that part of the constitution.
Naturally
Correct. States simply don’t have this power. The decision was unanimous for a reason.
They are excplicitly given this power in the constitution, what are you talking about?
What is the text of the last section of Amendment 14?
Why?
There is no “why”. I asked a question.
For no reason? Helpful of you.
My bad. I overestimated the ability of people on this website to infer subtext.
The last section of Amendment 14 explains why the Supreme Court was more or less correct in its interpretation before you edited your original comment.
States rights*
*terms and conditions apply
*terms and conditions apply
Always has been. States have never had free reign to do anything they want. This is one of the things they cannot do.
States already do things like bar felons from voting and only put on 3rd party candidates that meet a certain signature threshold. Or add barriers to voting, like restricting when you can vote and ID laws.
Pretty much how it goes. Laws affect peons: oh well. Laws affect wealthy politicians: off to SCOTUS for them to overturn it!
Guess we really are going the route of states ignoring federal rulings and laws. This might get scary in the next few years.
It is already scary now.
That isn’t at all what this is about. This is asserting the inability for individual states to make rulings on federal matters. This is a good thing. It’s not states’ place to be ruling on federal cases. Those rulings need to come from the federal level.
Unless I’m misremembering, the scope is more limited. It’s specifically allocating the right to determine federal office eligibility to the federal government and not the state.
Any other rights without precedent currently remain with the states
If that’s what you think, you don’t understand the situation.
With every ruling the SC makes more and more states are setting themselves against the federal government. It’s becoming clear this union is not working at this point and it’s seeming inevitable that sometime in the near future we’re going to see more states than just Texas speaking of breaking away. Probably from more sides of the political spectrum and auth-right too
Commerce clause fucked us.
Deadly is the word you mean
Time to violently storm the Supreme Court, then. After all, they approve.
This is a shit take. This ruling is not saying “Trump did nothing wrong”, this is specifically saying “States cannot unilaterally decide to remove federal election candidates from ballots”, which I completely agree with. As others have noted, it would open the doors to so much bullshit if this were allowed.
The SC could come out tomorrow and say “We’re disqualifying Trump”, this doesn’t preclude that.
On the other hand, I could definitely see a bunch of red-controlled states deciding to remove Biden (or future Dem candidates) for whatever bullshit reason in the future, so while this ruling isn’t necessarily consistent with current practice it at least doesn’t open the door to that.
Except that R’s are already pretty cool with being inconsistent about what is our isn’t allowed, which is how we got certain members of the SC in the first place…
States have always had that power. Whether its age, naturalization, or oath-breaking, it’s never been up to the federal government to decide disqualification.
Now they do not, as outlined by the supreme court this morning. You can disagree with the ruling all you want, but that doesn’t make the premise that “the SC has no problem with insurrectionist behavior!” any less stupid. It’s a fallacious premise.
Consider the fact that there is more than one grounds for disqualification. For president, there are also age and naturalization disqualifications.
Who do you think has been determining those all these years?
You’re getting further and further away from your original, still ridiculous statement that the SCOTUS has no problem with you storming the building.
That is what is known as “sarcasm”. I wasn’t sincerely calling for violence against the Supreme Court, but rather drawing attention to their hypocrisy.
it’s never been up to the federal government to decide disqualification.
It’s up to Congress to decide if someone is guilty of federal insurrection, not the states.
On the contrary, Congress is expressly forbidden from deciding whether someone is guilty of a crime.
IMPEACHMENT has entered the chat.
Impeachment is expressly not a criminal procedure. It can’t result in prison or fines, nor can it can’t be pardoned by the President.
But it is the process by which a candidate can be removed from the ballot.
So if you want to go with Trump is criminally guilty of insurrection, and therefore ineligible to be on the ballot, when and where was the trial?
There’s no reason a state can’t make that decision. You didn’t even make an argument. Just made a statement.
There’s no reason a state can’t make that decision. You didn’t even make an argument. Just made a statement.
I didn’t need to make an argument because SCOTUS decided that only Congress is the authority for ballot removal per section 5. It made a lot of people mad and down-arrowed facts. The internet Constitutional scholars came out in droves.
Here is the decision that most of them didn’t read PDF warning
Edit: I see the downvotes, but I don’t see replies. I thought this was a place for reasoned debate, but it’s as bad as r/politics where anything regarding the orange man is concerned.
Textbook Sealion
It’s not a State Law they’re using to remove him. It’s federal election laws. It’s in the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution which was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. They even specifically discussed if a President should have an exception and decided it did not. The Supreme Court is choosing NOT to enforce the US Federal Constitution!
States remove federal election candidates for eligibility reasons all the time. Trump is yet again getting special treatment.
[citation needed]
List one federal candidate a state successfully removed (that wasn’t convicted in a federal court, or died before the election.)
https://ballotpedia.org/Presidential_candidates,_2020
Every state has a different number of candidates on their ballot, because every state has different requirements to be on their ballot. Is this ruling going to require every state to accept every candidate? Even those with no chance of winning? Who should decide when someone has no chance of winning? (Silly question, it’s the state, of course.)
States are generally free to decide their own candidates for State level elections.
Federal elections are subject to Federal law and the Federal Constitution. A State just deciding someone is disqualified based on their interpretation is both unconstitutional and incredibly stupid. It was always going to SCOTUS and it was always going to be decided this way.
Me, I don’t want to live in a country where ANY level of government can just decide you are guilty of something without due process. And that’s what these states tried to do. The mad downvoters lack critical thinking ability and are going off emotion.
You didn’t look at the link, did you? There’s a map that shows the number of presidential candidates on the ballot in each state. If the federal government was in charge of presidential candidates, wouldn’t all those numbers be the same?
Not if they didn’t file the correct paperwork (on time), pay the necessary fees, and I believe, have enough qualified signatures is each state in which you want to appear on the ballot.
Making the argument that a state can otherwise disqualify because they believe you are guilty of insurrection is now moot. 9-0.
States have been doing this for 232 years. It is wild that it’s suddenly now not Constitutional. Especially when the Constitution has this to say on the matter.
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
So what law is there?
And why the fuck is SCOTUS inserting itself into the electoral process again? It’s not mentioned anywhere in that section for a reason. If SCOTUS can influence elections then they can influence appointments and regulations about them, which makes the entire checks and balance system a dead letter.
This is all a moot point. Trump simply does not qualify.
It’s just like he was 34.
He cannot hold that office. What the states do is irrelevant.
Trump got due process through the congressional investigation that found he engaged in insurrection with a bi partisan panel.
Nowhere does the Constitution even say due process is needed here.
This is not a punishment. Trump has no right to run for president.
He has to qualify.
He does not qualify.
This is all a moot point.
You’re right, the Supreme Court ruled.
Trump simply does not qualify.
Nine Justices disagreed. Final Answer.
congressional investigation that found he engaged in insurrection with a bi partisan panel.
Meaningless. It has to go to the entire House. And BTW…where is the evidence from that bipartisan panel? O right, it was deleted before the other party took control of the House. Nothing to see here.
A State just deciding someone is disqualified based on their interpretation is both unconstitutional
Tell me you’ve completely forgotten what the Constitution very briefly says about presidential elections without telling me you’ve completely forgotten what it says.
Here’s a refresher: look over Article II, Clauses 2 through 5 of the US Constitution. And as you do this, remember the Tenth Amendment, and that what the Constitution does not specifically reserve to the federal government automatically remains the jurisdiction of the states, barring later changes via judicial review.
The only other mention in the original Constitution of how elections are generally to be held is in Article 1, Section 4, which goes over electing legislators.
As you can see with your own eyes, there’s not a lot there. It really is up to the states, and that’s how the Constitution was written, because the framers wanted to AVOID the centralization of power inherent in monarchies and instead have a federation of states with just enough centralized power to make it hold together.
If you want to continue to insist that an individual state’s disqualification of candidates is itself unconstitutional, then show the rest of us the article, section, or amendment of the Constitution that supports your claim. Thanks.
EDITED to add links and reformat
I’m neither a Constitutional scholar nor a lawyer. I’ll go with Marbury v Madison as who gets to decide those finer points.
And they decided 9-0.
They’re going off of the lack of due process and any hope that his crimes will be answered for.
Legally, it’s this but actually it’s that. The court can argue its points, if they survive. Meanwhile has anyone seen the unredacted Mueller report yet? No? No one? Hmm. HOW STRANGE. Legally, the courts are fine with that too, though.
Trump’s process is going to come due, and we’d all prefer it be on live tv.
unredacted Mueller report
I’m still waiting for the Epstein list.
Is this ruling going to require every state to accept every candidate? Even those with no chance of winning?
Only those thrown off the ballot using section 3 of the 14th amendment. Ballot access requirements in general have been before the court many times before and upheld generally, while some have been struck down when excessive or discriminatory.
It’s legal to say something like all candidates must get signatures equal to 3% of the number of voters for the office in the last election in order to be on the ballot. It’s illegal to say something like black candidates must get signatures of 15% of voters.
Funny. Have you read the ruling? They absolutely do not stop at section 3 of the 14th. They are over turning 200 plus years of precedent in which states disqualified ineligible candidates.
They opine that there is no bar to campaigning, just holding office. And that any disqualification must therefore come after the election, via a federal law or congressional framework.
Which is fucking ridiculous.
Have you read the ruling? It actually states there was no precedent of its use as applied here, and was in violation of precedents such as prohibitions against congressional term limits. Source: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf
Abdul Hassan, Colorado, 2012.
And I’m not a genie. I don’t wait here for your every request. The fact that I got back to this inside an hour is a miracle. So maybe less of the “woe is me!” Routine next time?
Abdul Hassan
Guyanese-born, so not a natural born citizen, therefore not otherwise eligible. He sued, citing discrimination, and lost. Try again, this time with a natural born citizen >35 years old.
And “the woe is me routine” is for all the down arrows on this subject that didn’t or couldn’t provide a name.
Buddy. That’s why people get disqualified. They aren’t eligible. You’re asking for something beyond reality.
I’m asking for something that doesn’t exist.
Most recently, it continues to not exist because States can’t disqualify according to SCOTUS.
The Green Party, 2020 election. State supreme Court removed them from the presidential election ballot for errors in paperwork that… Are honestly entirely bureaucratic nightmare to read.
Not the first or last time there have been state based hearings in court to remove candidates especially Green Party. States decide their own ballots all the time. Heck apparently now is a great time to add your name to a federal election ballot since you can’t be removed by the state.
We should make the ballot 12 pages long with every single vague or minor party enforcing they can’t have their name removed running for any federal position.
Heck apparently now is a great time to add your name to a federal election
Nah, I’ll just write it in. My wife still likes me, so maybe I can get two votes.
Hey I’m actually trying to have the conversation you apparently wanted. I get you are, I guess, done with that notion.
So I’m just gonna point out this waste of a comment. You’d be better off just ignoring the people who try to legitimately add rather than just adding a wasted joke and delegitimizing your position further.It’s literally moot at this point. Internet lawyers arguing constitutional law when SCOTUS has made a (unanimous decision) on the matter is just people blowing off steam.
If you agree with the decision (I do), trying to change someone’s mind (who doesn’t) is probably not going to happen.
You’ve been reasoned in your disagreement. I appreciate that.
They use procedural reasons all the time. It’s why ballot access is a huge deal to third parties, and they still have to sue some state or another every election.
Arguably states unilaterally removing a candidate from the ballot is a major paving stone on the road to the civil war, when Lincoln won because of the split pro slave vote the south blew a gasket because it only just hit them then that everyone else had enough electors among them to ignore the south completely.
The idea that we have to let an insurrectionist campaign and win before disqualifying them is far worse. It would instantly lead to massive protests and violence from whichever party had that happen to them. If you want to avoid civil war then denial must happen early if at all.
A lot of the Constitution assumes a level of good faith that just no longer exists among Republicans. Anyway, by my read Colorado can still make it a state law and be totally fine since there would be no conflict, they just can’t use the 14th Amendment.
Ultimately, it’s a stupid decision based on stupid facts, the worst kind.
That may be true, but the problem is that we really needed the federal government to actually bother to inflict consequences on Trump.
Colorado can’t make the determination of insurrectionest for say North Dakota, and it’s nuts if the eligibility of a president varies state to state. So the federal government has to be responsible for the determination.
Even putting that aside, only three states even tried to declare him insurrectionist. The three states didn’t have even enough sway to influence the Republican race. Even to the extent they did, Republicans already declared they would caucus to sidestep the primary ballot if Trump were banned. In the general election, those states have been true blue for at least 16 years, no Republican was going to get those electoral votes anyway. It was only ever going to be a symbolic gesture even if it could stand, the federal government would have had to disqualify him in states that actually mattered for any meaningful result.
And ND is free to keep him on the ballot. If a state is acting egregiously there is a remedy for that in the certification of electors in early January.
Maybe the actual fix is to make the college of electors real again. We elect not a president but someone we trust to make a decision in that college and possibly become president.
Oh my, could you imagine the disaster of the certification of electors genuinely became contentious? Could you imagine what happens if the electors chose whomever they felt like without the general populace knowing in advance? It would end up being supremely corrupt.
No justice, no peace.
Sorry, but this is absolutely a victory for democracy and what little structure our government still has. If the states were to be allowed to remove candidates from the ballot, you could kiss any chance of Democrat candidates showing up on red state ballots goodbye.
States remove candidates routinely. It’s their constitutional right. Except with Trump for some reason.
For some Reason indeed.
Yup. He’s getting special treatment. Again.
Do you have any examples of that? I’m certainly no expert in this subject, so I’d love to know more.
Abdul Hassan, 2012, Colorado. Disqualified by the state for not being a natural born citizen. Sued and lost. The ensuing opinion authored by then district judge Neil Gorsuch upheld the constitutional right and duty of states to bar ineligible candidates.
Call me old fashioned, but an outgoing president who falsely claims their challenger stole the election and incites their supporters to storm the capitol building should be barred from holding office again, Democrat or Republican.
I absolutely agree. But it’s up to Congress to actually do that. That’s the branch of government that has failed here.
How would they do that? Congress can’t actually charge someone with a crime. That’s why they wrote the 14th Amendment which spelled this out.
Except for the part where they punt to Congress as the sole arbiter of whether Trump engaged in insurrection. They absolutely know Congress won’t get off its collective ass to enforce, because it’s too broken to even pass a budget.
I believe that someone could sue in federal court, but the 14th amendment doesn’t state that he can’t run for office. It merely states that he can’t hold office. Of course if he wins the election then that will be a giant cluster fuck.
They can’t really sue to disqualify him in federal court because Congress hasn’t defined any process to do so. They absolutely could if they wanted though. As of right now if I’m correct the only way to disqualify someone is if they’re convicted of rebellion or insurrection under 18 U.S.C. § 2383 as it specifically lists it as part of the punishment. Or Congress could potentially disqualify someone directly by name – it wouldn’t necessarily be an illegal bill of attainder because it carries no criminal penalty.
If a person cannot hold an office, they are typically also disqualified from running for said office, for exactly that reason. What would you do if an ineligible person won the election? That would be utter chaos.
Someone explained to me there is a procedure for an elected candidate who is ineligible actually wins the election.
If for any reason the president cannot carry out the duties of the office, it falls to the vice president. So you’d have to just skip the president and swear in his running mate.
It would still be utterly stupid, but surprisingly there is a process to handle the scenario.
That’s a problem with Congress. That doesn’t change the fact that we should not give Republicans a new route to undermine the voting process.
States have always had control over federal elections and candidate qualifications. That’s been fundamental to American federalism since the very beginning.
It’s not like oath-breaking is the only disqualifier, and states decide those too.
In this case, I don’t disagree with their decisions and neither did the moderate justices.
This prevents all of the heavily gerrymandered red States from pulling Biden from the ballot as well.
And if they ruled in favor of pulling Trump from the ballot, you can bet your ass that Biden will be gone from every red and swing state ballot too. Possibly more than we would be able to get Trump pulled from.Then we knew it was a sham all along and we march in the streets. Giving a criminal conspiracy what they want because they might conspire is crazy town.
. . . For no reason, being the difference. Right.
The thing is, there being no reason wouldn’t stop them from declaring that they have a reason. They’d abuse the hell out of it. No one is saying there is a justification for disqualifying Biden, just that a lot of GOP folks would do it anyway.
See when they decided they needed some sort of revenge impeachment and impeached without any particular reason.
