I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past day. I think SCOTUS would use the fact that the insurrection clause is in an Amendment which contains another clause stating that Congress shall have the power to enforce it, while the age limit is in Article II and contains no such clause, to decide that the age and citizenship requirements are self executing where the insurrection clause is not. In practical terms, I think that’s what would happen. I think it’s bullshit, but I think that’s what the Court would do if Shwarzenegger tried to run for President, a state inevitably refused to put him on the ballot, and he sued like Trump did here. Actually, I think a lower court and appeals court would do exactly what they did in the Trump case, and then SCOTUS would deny cert and not even hear the case. This whole country is so messed up right now when it comes to Trump. The entire system seems hell bent on pretending he’s just a normal politician acting in good faith, and on not holding him criminally accountable for any of the many crimes he’s committed.
Kumbayah, motherfucker…
The pathetic part is that it’s not driven by fear of future reprisals but rather by complacency and apathy and short-term greed.
This is one where I agree with the details but disagree with the conclusion. It’s 100% correct that this is inconsistent with the VRA ruling. And I think the conclusion of the majority opinion that Congress needs to pass a law to enforce the constitution is ridiculous on its face; if this is a federal issue, it should be decided by the federal courts.
But I think, in general terms, it’s probably not good to be in a place where a state can unilaterally strike a federal candidate from the ballot, because that could easily turn into a bad situation. I’d argue that the reason this is inconsistent with the VRA ruling is that the VRA ruling was on its face ridiculous, stating that the federal government couldn’t impose restrictions on states that were known to violate the rights of vulnerable citizens who would have difficulties bringing a suit.
What both decisions have in common is what I’m starting to think of as the Roberts special; a ruling that has a fig leaf of “all that has to happen is Congress needs to act” knowing full well that his counterparts in Congress have rendered it incapable of acting.
ETA: The majority also has one of the hallmarks of one you should be immediately skeptical of; one in which the court either explicitly or implicitly takes the court system out of the process of enforcing constitutional protections.
Yeah, the ruling that only Congress can enforce this clause, not the Federal courts or anyone else, is pretty ridiculous in part because of the way that the amendment was written. There’s a specific clause in the language of the amendment saying that a 2/3rds majority vote of both houses can “remove this disability once imposed.”
So Congress already had a say and had the ability to overrule a court’s decision regarding an insurrectionist candidate. There was no need to say that only Congress could declare someone an insurrectionist in the first place.
That’s an excellent point that I hadn’t even considered. I was just looking at it from the perspective of decades of rulings that didn’t require Congress to enforce the 2nd amendment.
and not only that, the court specifically encourages patchwork when it comes to race. 
The gap in voter participation between Black and white Americans decreased following the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. Unfortunately, our research shows that for more than a decade, this trend has been reversing.
We find that the gap has consistently grown since 2012 and is growing most quickly in parts of the country that were previously covered under Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which was suspended by the Supreme Court in its 2013 decision
Even the excellent analysis @RickMycroft linked:
Essentially, according to the Court’s majority, the insurrectionist clause has just been sitting on the books for 150 years with no enforcement mechanism attached, waiting for Congress to do something.
…missed this:
The thing is, Congress did act in regard to 14Asec3 in the past, as part of the Amnesty Act of 1872, which specifically excluded high officers of the US and congesspeople. That Act explicitly creates the condition that 14Asec3 was self-actuating.
As @Otherbrother points out, they would still be full of shit to do so, because that clause mandates congressional enforcement inverted, saying that for the clause to not apply to specific insurrectionists, 2/3 of Congress would have to agree.
That’s a different clause. I’m talking about section 5, which says, “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” That’s the clause SCOTUS hung their opinion on, bullshit or not. So all I’m saying is that if Arnold Schwarzenegger ran for President, the logic SCOTUS would use to say “But this is different” is that the citizenship requirement isn’t in the 14th Amendment. It’s in Article II. And Article II contains no similar clause to section 5 in the 14th. And again, as I said in my comment, it’s still bullshit. I’m just saying that’s the argument they would use.
This would probably fall under “ask 3 lawyers, get 5 opinions.” But yeah, this just reeks of motivated reasoning.
Which, ironically, is the clause where every Reconstruction-era law Congress passed pursuant to the section, SCOTUS declared unconstitutional. Just to emphasize how full of shit this ruling is.
As the Supreme Court has always operated. From John Marshall to Ketanji Brown-Jackson, from hardcore originalist to flexible progressives, they all start with the answer they want and work backwards to find the legal justification. The idea that the Court was ever some impartial body making purely logical decisions based on objective interpretation of the law is nonsense.
Like…even the whole issue of Thomas needing to recuse himself is not a new issue. Recusal probably wasn’t a thing in 1803, but John Marshall wrote the majority opinion in Marbury v. Madison that created the modern Supreme Court, and he was literally directly involved in the events that led to the lawsuit!
If this court grants any kind of immunity, even strictly limited to the nail on ■■■■■’s left pinky toe, it’s time to burn the whole thing down.
I’m not sure how I feel about Lessig mansplaining the fucking constitution to Justice Sotomayor…
Also…
Is this Trump derangement syndrome?
WTF? What does Trump have to do to PROVE to the vast majority of privileged white dudes that he’s a fucking threat to ALL OF US… I’m really sick of this bothsiderism shit.
