this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
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Permanently Deleted (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 

Excerpt:

It’s extremely difficult to square this ruling with the text of Section 3 [of the Fourteenth Amendment]. The language is clearly mandatory. The first words are “No person shall be” a member of Congress or a state or federal officer if that person has engaged in insurrection or rebellion or provided aid or comfort to the enemies of the Constitution. The Section then says, “But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.”

In other words, the Constitution imposes the disability, and only a supermajority of Congress can remove it. But under the Supreme Court’s reasoning, the meaning is inverted: The Constitution merely allows Congress to impose the disability, and if Congress chooses not to enact legislation enforcing the section, then the disability does not exist. The Supreme Court has effectively replaced a very high bar for allowing insurrectionists into federal office — a supermajority vote by Congress — with the lowest bar imaginable: congressional inaction.

This is a fairly easy read for the legal layperson, and the best general overview I've seen yet that sets forth the various legal and constitutional factors involved in today's decision, including the concurring dissent by Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson.

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[–] [email protected] 117 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Absolutely, it's insane that congress passed an ammendment that said a thing and now the Supreme Court is saying "no, it doesn't say that thing, if you wanted that to apply you'd need to pass a congressional act on a case by case basis."

Imagine if everytime someone committed tax fraud congress had to officially vote to investigate that specific person. Imagine if a country like America was unable to delegate any powers.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

deleted by creator

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago

It’s because they don’t actually care what the constitution or the bill of rights or any of the amendments says. The Tribunal of Six only cares about ensuring their political compatriots - that is, the GOP - can cement their power for good. And if that means that we sink into fascism… they don’t care. Because they’ll be calling the shots.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Literalism is just a tool for the corrupt Supremes to wield as a convenience.

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[–] [email protected] 100 points 1 year ago (3 children)

SCOTUS is clearly making unconditional rulings. The states should go nuclear and ignore them. Let SCOTUS enforce its decisions.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

This is how you get a civil war

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you see this mess stabilizing without one? I want Republicans to have access to medical care, an equitable economy, and education, god knows they need it.

They openly prefer people like me were dead. There's no negotiating with that.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I look at it like this:Two sides. One side is completely full of shit and they know it. They also know the other side knows. However, both sides have agreed to keep up the pretense of everything being okay, for whatever reason. I like to call it the "Slow Break-up".

It's like when your romantic partner stops showing up for date nights, then they get home late, then they start sleeping on the couch. And eventually you get around to asking, "Is something wrong?" And they're all like, "No, everything is fine, work's just been riding me so hard lately, and now I get home so late that I don't want to wake you up." Then one day they're packing their shit to leave, and they look at you and go, "Look, we both saw this coming."

It's always "not happening" until it's already happened. The moment is skipped over where they could acknowledge they misled you, try to make amends, maybe do something about the problem.

But, my overall point is this. A civil war would be like a fight between spouses. Like, a big serious fight. Where there is the possibility that someone's going to yell "I want a divorce!". So the divorce happens, but both parties move on, and try to heal. I am on the side that wants to have the fight, move on, and heal.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Let's be honest. Either way here could easily end in a civil war. The temperature in the pot has been raising for 40 years. The earlier we lance this boil, the better off we'll be though. Kicking the can down the road allows extremist ideologies to spread more and more. Which does nothing but guarantee more suffering.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Careful what you wish for because you just might get it.

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[–] [email protected] 91 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

It's like the Supreme Court thinks it can supersede the constitution because it thinks the ammendment was poorly worded/thought out. cough cough second ammendment cough cough

It's been a shit show since day one with this court. If there's ever been a time to pack the court it is now. Hell, do it in response to this ruling. Allowing an insurrectionist on the ballot is plain unacceptable. We're already heading toward discourse we cannot solve. Make a stand, would someone?

Edit: Just clarifying it's the Supreme Court who doesn't think it has to adhere to the language in the amendment. Not myself.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The thing is it's not poorly worded. It clearly establishes the ban and clearly allows Congress to create legislation. It does not revoke the state power to administer elections. It does not require Congress to create legislation.

It's meant to be understood by anyone reading it and it was created with far more modern English than the original document. What you see is what you get, no semantics required.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's the Supreme Court that thinks it, not me. I'll update my text to reflect that.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (12 children)

I thought I read that the decision was unanimous. If the liberals and conservatives on the court agree, it seems unlikely that packing the court would change the decision.

Also, as much as I'd love to see Trump excluded from ballots, we all know that states like Texas would turn around and do the same to Biden, just out of spite. It would change the nature of democracy, in a bad way, if individual states could just randomly decide to exclude candidates they don't like. Heck, what would stop them from excluding ALL candidates of a particular party, except perhaps some token losers or quislings no one ever heard of?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The liberals dessented by essentially saying the law should be "self executing" (a fucking joke) in that if he was part of an insurrection then he's just as ineligible as a 30 year old running for president. You simply can't run if you're under 35, so in some fantasy reality those judges live in Trump just wouldn't be able to be on the ballots automatically, as if no one has to actually ENFORCE that law (see: judges actions in removing him)

It's astounding how utterly deranged our laws are.

Trump has well earned the name "Teflon Don."

The ONLY thing that man has not lied about is "I could shoot someone on 5th avenue and not lose any supporters (and he'd walk away into the sunset with 0 repercussions whatsoever)"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

This is a strange situation, for sure. The age requirement you bring up is a good comparison. Age is something you are, not something you've done, possibly done, or definitey not done, so there isn't as much to argue about.

However, what if some 33 year-old decided to run and had the support of one of the two big parties, and just lied about her age? Presumably, that would require a finding of fact and would be adjudicated by the federal courts, not Congress or each state legislature or Attorney General.

Your example makes it pretty clear that even something supposedly "self-executing" still needs a back-up plan. Another interesting example is the 2000 election, where it was the Supreme Court that arbitrated the final vote, which decided the winner of the presidential election (incorrectly, it seems, based on later statistical analysis). Nasedon these two examples, I don't entirely understand their reasoning for pushing the decision about eligibility to Congress. While an election is for a political office, the process of running an election is supposed to be apolitical.

What the US really needs is a non-partisan, apolitical, independent federal electoral commission.

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where are all the states’ rights people now?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Too busy working to overthrow the government and implement a fascist dictatorship...

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You know, in a sane universe, the President could legitimately actually declare a national emergency over the ongoing efforts to overturn representative democracy in the open, but we live in this one.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

If we lived in a sane universe, the foreign-funded propaganda that Trump and his grift relies upon for energy, cash, and followers would have been turned off fifteen years ago back when Fox "News" openly misrepresented material facts regarding the Obama administration, or when they got sued the first time for not being actual news.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The much vaunted checks and balances mean nothing when the SC is corrupt

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (5 children)

This was a unanimous decision

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It wasn't. 5 said the text means the opposite of what it says. Four said enforcing it is up to the federal courts, not state courts. Two wildly different opinions with the only thing in common being overturning the state ruling.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

It’s not inconsistent with the court’s inconsistency though.

Scalia was a legal juggernaut on the bench and off it, as unfortunate his politics may be, he had a very large influence on the legal arena surrounding Constitutional law. He argued (correctly) for separated powers and the legislature doing the legislation on big and controversial topics instead of the court(s) - openly pointing out SCotUS’s composition as an unelected, politically appointed technocracy.

What changed and grew was the inconsistency of the conservative members at respecting that separation of powers whilst also not shying from their role as final legal arbiter. Trump v Anderson was correctly decided that states cannot deny candidates federal ballot access without due process, but they completely neglected to affirm or deny the lower courts ruling of what counts as attempted insurrection, kicking that to Congress.

This is political cowardice, not good and proper separated powers keeping each other in check. A legal case is the correct route to determine facts surrounding a candidates eligibility - not a political disqualification process without precedent nor established rules regarding evidentiary eligibility, rights of the accused, composition of the adjudicators, etc. any attempt to disqualify via US Congress will spurn a host of new legal challenges based on procedural questions

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

deleted by creator

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Has Trump actually been found guilty of insurrection? It seems this could be where the issue lies. I know he's an insurrectionist, you know he is an insurrectionist but unless convicted how do you apply the law?

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago

He was found by the Colorado court to have engaged in insurrection, yes. No court since has overruled that finding. Not even the scotus in this decision disagreed with the finding. They just said, basically, "He did it but Colorado doesn't have the power to determine eligibility under the 14th; That's for congress."

The "trump was never convicted of insurrection" meme is dead.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It requires no conviction.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Doesn't that put the 14th and 5th in conflict? I made the assumption that due process (5th) was assumed/required when the 14th was written.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

being disqualified from an office is not covered by the 5th amendment

people under 35 are not being held out of office of the president for some crime.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

So... what's to stop a Texas or a Mississippi or a Florida from deciding that Biden has participated in an insurrection, and requiring no conviction, uses this as grounds for removal from the ballot in November?

As much as I want Trump off ballots and believe he's an insurrectionist, it's important to remember that anything that can be done to hamper his chances that requires no (or a low bar) legal framework can also be done to help his chances.

If a court in Colorado can sit down and decide he's off the ballot because of their opinions, and that decision is enforceable and unassailable, then we're establishing that a state court can strike any name from any ballot because they say so.

With that precedent, I would fully expect states with GOP leadership to appoint judges who would then find reasons to call some aspect of Biden's presidency an insurrection (in a similar vein as the Mayorkas impeachment), and remove him from their state's ballot.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So are we going to keep kowtowing to Fascists?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, that was the ruling of the Colorado state Supreme Court. This is the federal Supreme Court saying "the courts can't do that, only congress can" which is a very very strange way to read that amendment.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And then when it gets to Congress they'll throw their hands up and say "He's not president we can't impeach him!" as if that's all they could do. Then when he is president (I fully expect him to win...) they'll say "impeachment is just a political tool it's not about crimes!" So they can continue to do absofuckinglutley nothing about it, again pretending that this is an impeachment thing.

I'm almost 40 and I've never lived in a time where Congress served any useful purpose. We already don't have any representation yet we pretend like we do because like 6 people exist (AOC, Porter, Sanders etc...)

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago

Cool can we ignore the second amendment next?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

God, I hate this timeline. Why couldn't we get the cool dystopian one.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Don't worry, let this one cook for a while and it'll turn into the cool dystopian one.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

I was really hoping for zombies, instead we get fascism and climate apocalypse.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

No mention of the Court's reasoning that it should not be enforced at the State level, but instead at the Federal level?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I propose we go out in mass this weekend and let them know we are pissed.

What's next? No more basic human rights? Maybe make it ok to own slaves if the owner really really wants to?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that reversed the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision striking Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot, even insurrectionists who’ve violated their previous oath of office can hold federal office, unless and until Congress passes specific legislation to enforce Section 3.

In the aftermath of the oral argument last month, legal observers knew with near-certainty that the Supreme Court was unlikely to apply Section 3 to Trump.

But instead of any of these options, the court went with arguably the broadest reasoning available: that Section 3 isn’t self-executing, and thus has no force or effect in the absence of congressional action.

We can bar individuals from holding office who are under the age limit or who don’t meet the relevant citizenship requirement without congressional enforcement legislation.

In one important respect, the court’s ruling on Monday is worse and more consequential than the Senate’s decision to acquit Trump after his Jan. 6 impeachment trial in 2021.

It would be clearly preferable if Congress were to pass enforcement legislation that established explicit procedures for resolving disputes under Section 3, including setting the burden of proof and creating timetables and deadlines for filing challenges and hearing appeals.


The original article contains 948 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 79%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

It was a unanimous decision and the precedent they set was that states don't have the right to declare who is and who is not a traitor, only the federal government can decide that. I don't like Trump, but the precedent needed to be set and I agree with the supreme court on this one. You can still try to prove he is a traitor in federal court, and then he would be knocked off the ballot in all states.

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