Our deeply divided Supreme Court looks poised to speak with one voice on the most important election-related case to hit the court’s docket since its 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore. But its decision may do little more than kick the proverbial can down the road until after the 2024 election.
Thursday morning the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that will decide whether former President Donald Trump is ineligible for the presidency because of his involvement in the deadly attack on our nation’s capital on Jan. 6, 2021. The case centers on a matter of first impression for the Supreme Court — whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits a former president who allegedly engaged in insurrection from once again being president.
The justices focused on both the legal and practical reasons why states may lack power to determine whether federal candidates are barred from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The specific wording of the Constitution matters here. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits a person who previously served “as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State” from serving as “a senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State,” if that person engaged in insurrection.
The 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, in the wake of the Civil War. Section 3 was originally designed to prevent those who served in office and then fought for the Confederacy from once again holding public office. The idea is that you don’t get to try to destroy our government from within and then later serve as a member of our government. The question is whether this old prohibition applies to Trump.
Over more than two hours of oral arguments, the justices coalesced around two primary reasons Trump…
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