The US Supreme Court has some tough choices to make. On one hand you have a piece of the constitution that, at least to this layperson, would seem to clearly disqualify Trump - but absent any clarifying law from Congress it’s really hard to figure out how to implement it. Do you let States do it? What if a Republican state official says Biden is an insurrectionist? How would Biden challenge that? What court would hear that challenge? If it’s the state supreme courts, then what if one court disqualifies him and another doesn’t? Do you allow for some states to disqualify candidates and others not, or does the Supreme Court have to take up these cases each election year? What’s the threshold for insurrection? Should it require a criminal conviction? What if Trump were charged with insurrection and later acquitted - can he now run again?
Maybe they might punt it off to Congress and say that it’s Congress’ responsibility when counting electoral college votes to decide if a candidate is qualified or not, but now you’ve just given cover to Republicans to reject presidential election results they don’t like if they happen to win enough seats in Congress.
Tl;dr - from my perspective they have to either ignore the constitution and invite the chaos of another possible Trump presidency, or acknowledge the constitution and invite (additional) chaos into the election system. If Congress functioned maybe a decent law could be written but fat chance of that.
The US Supreme Court has some tough choices to make.
😂
You actually really think they give a shit?
For those who missed it (or didn’t watch) the AP has a pretty concise page with what happened.
https://apnews.com/live/trump-supreme-court-arguments-updates
Good summary. Apparently even the Democratic judges are skeptical of upholding the Colorado Supreme Court decision.
When faced with murky or complex legal issues surrounding elections, I think the court pretty much always tries to come down on the side of letting voters decide. And I’m not sure that’s a bad philosophy. This has been my expectation from day one, though I’ve tried to keep an optimistic view and challenge myself to look for reasons they might rule differently.
I’m not surprised in the least, but I’m glad we at least the challenge was made. I’m not sure if any country can withstand self-sabotage by a nearly 50% party. If we can’t defeat Trump at the ballot it doesn’t really matter whether we can keep him off on a legal issue because there are still all those folks he has won over. Authority in our nation comes from the people, and the people decide. I just wish so many of us weren’t so fucking stupid and hateful.
The only hope America has is that Trump is convicted in one of his trials and receives jail time (hopefully a LOT of jail time). NAL but I’m pretty sure SCOTUS would back that scenario fully.
They would probably stay his sentence pending presidency, at which point he would self pardon and go full dictator, dooming the country
The only hope for this country is either a senile genocide supporter winning in November, or a Big Mac induced heart attack
Not just winning, but winning decisively so the Court can’t give a victory to Trump anyway like they did for Bush. If there is any doubt, at all, about the election then Trump will probably be the next president.
And rather than rallying his base to fight fascism, he’s browbeating them to vote blue no matter who. The president can’t fail, he can only be failed. 🙃
