14th Amendment chess.
by IAND75 (2024-02-08 10:17:03)
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I’m trying to think multiple steps ahead. I have seen little commentary on the ramifications of the Supreme Court ruling to allow Trump to be removed from the ballot.

The most common comments are that there are many other the states waiting to see how the Supreme Court rules before undertaking their own efforts to remove him from the ballot. But it makes a difference as to exactly which states those are.

If he is removed from the ballot in multiple states where he would be expected to lose by reliable large margins it doesn’t change the Electoral College calculus.

I have a difficult time imagining that the major swing states could successfully remove him, and certainly not the deep red states.

How would this play out over the next 9 months? Will there be a massive legal battle in all levels of the court system? Will it further harden and inflame the political divide in the country? Could it lead to violence?

Today is a momentous day in our constitutional system. Unfortunately it is just one of many to come. It feels like we are about to step into a great void, with the potential of serious ramifications that we only vaguely grasp.

My layperson's thoughts having listened to a lot of it...
by Kbyrnes  (2024-02-08 14:58:08)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

...while driving hither and yon this morning.

Punch line: SCOTUS will reverse the Supreme Court of Colorado based on enforcement grounds--states can't keep someone off the ballot based on Amendment 14, Section 3; as Kavanaugh indicated, Congress has the power to keep an insurrectionist out of federal office. (Note; I'm not saying this is my opinion, exactly; it's what I think will happen.)

The debate at SCOTUS revealed, I think, a fundamental tension in our process of electing people to national office, to wit, the President and Vice-President. Under our current and long-standing electoral system, the states hold elections for electors, and each state certifies its own electors based on state law.

Then Congress counts the electoral ballots, which is purely a ministerial/clerical activity. However, the President of the Senate then "declares" who is elected based on the tellers' counts. Article I of the Constitution, as amended by the 12th Amendment, succinctly states, inter alia, "The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed." That's it. "Shall be President." So the Congress counts the votes, and then declares who, in accordance with the Constitution, shall be the President ( and the same for the Vice President).

So up to a certain point, all the states do their various things and produces slates of certified electors. Then Congress takes it the rest of the way.

The concerns that members of SCOTUS spoke of today were not really based so much in the history and text of the Constitution as on what the consequences might be if they affirmed Colorado. Do we really want various states saying, this one can be on the ballot, and that one can't, resulting in a speckled canvas of presidential candidates on or off ballots across the country.

Now, if a dyed -in-the-wool blue state left Trump off, and a deeply red state left Biden off, maybe it wouldn't change the outcome. But what if PA, MI, WI, AZ, or GA left one or the other off? The justices raised a reasonable concern for the outcome. What I found interesting is that over recent decades this has not been the mainstream style of SCOTUS.

If we had national elections for nationwide office, this issue would not arise. But we have state-by-state elections of people whose votes then go to the central vote-counting establishment in Washington, and the result does not impact any particular state, but all the states collectively.

That is the structural tension that I think animated much of today's discussion; and perhaps, as many have argued, another argument for eliminating the electoral college. But what could the unanticipated consequences be for our civic polity if giant blue states were effectively electing Democratic presidents term after term after term?
I don't think you need to worry about it
by manofdillon  (2024-02-08 12:01:35)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

It can certainly be hard to read tea leaves based on oral argument, but the liberal justices (at least Kagan and Jackson) are grilling Colorado's counsel pretty hard, and seem to have concerns about the workability of 50 separate states being able to exclude presidential candidates from the ballot without a conviction or determination by Congress. A 9-0 decision would not shock me, but I certainly don't see any of the 6 conservatives peeling off.
If they reject it, I hope it’s 9-0
by sprack  (2024-02-08 12:39:21)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

Give Trump his small victory here in a case that probably never had a chance, take away the “it’s rigged!” argument and then move on to the real stuff.
I don't think it will be 6-3.
by manofdillon  (2024-02-08 12:44:58)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

Kagan seemed awfully skeptical, and I think has more of an institutionalist bent than Jackson and certainly Sotomayor. She'd appreciate the harm to the court of a straight split along partisan lines. Most of the legal prognosticators I've seen since the argument concluded are predicting something between 7-2 and 9-0.

If the decision is limited (as it should be), it will be
by CMCIrish  (2024-02-08 17:45:55)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

that states can't decide qualifications under Section III of the 14th Amendment unless Congress gives them the right to do so, and it will be an 8-1 or 9-0 decision. My view is this is where this is headed.
Fascinating.
by Revue Party  (2024-02-08 18:45:18)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

I don't comment on Supreme Court cases because I don't understand the law. If you're thinking it's 8-1 or 9-0 then I guess I really don't understand the law. I thought this was a possibility. Oops.

One interesting thing to me will be
by sprack  (2024-02-08 13:06:13)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

assuming Trump wins the case, what the majority opinion will say (if anything) on the whole question of whether Trump did engage in insurrection.
Almost 0% chance.
by manofdillon  (2024-02-08 14:14:52)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

Maybe Thomas or Alito will question whether this constitutes an insurrection in a concurrence. But assuming the opinion is based on a finding that state courts lack authority to remove a presidential candidates from the ballot based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment absent a criminal conviction or congressional authorization, they don't have to say anything about whether Trump engaged in insurrection. Roberts will want as much support for this as possible, and no way any of the liberals sign on to an order finding "Trump didn't do insurrection." The question wasn't a focus of oral argument at all.

As DakotaDomer rightly pointed out in the BR
by sprack  (2024-02-08 11:27:05)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

This affects the GOP nomination, and if enough states bar Trump from the ballot, it’s to the benefit of Nikki Haley, who would be running essentially unopposed in those states.

Well, except Nevada *
by enginerd194  (2024-02-08 13:06:45)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

As one wag put it, "Nikki Haley is second to none!" *
by Bacchus  (2024-02-08 15:41:38)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

Can they rule that he is entirely disqualified to hold
by ndstein04  (2024-02-08 11:26:39)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Cannot reply

office by the 14th Amendment and thus not eligible to be on the ballot in any state?