Former President Donald Trump’s appeal of a Colorado ruling barring him from the ballot may force the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in directly on his 2024 election prospects, a case that legal experts said will likely pull its nine justices into a political firestorm.
That state was the first, followed by Maine, to rule that Trump was disqualified from seeking the Republican presidential nomination due to his actions ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, an unprecedented legal decision that the nation’s top court could find too pressing to avoid.
“I doubt that any of the justices are pleased that they’re being forced into the fray over Donald Trump’s future. But it seems to me that the court will have no choice but to face these momentous issues,” said attorney Deepak Gupta, who has argued cases before the Supreme Court.
The justices, Gupta said, will have to act with “unusual speed and, hopefully, in a way that does not further divide our deeply divided land. That is a daunting and unenviable task.”
i agree with other posters… their best option is throwing it back to the states. they can rule that the states each get to decide on ‘is insurrectionist’ that is then only removable by 2/3rds of congress, per the constitution. leaves them without having to actually make a decision.
NAL but isn’t Constitutional law a federal issue the must be ruled on by SCOTUS? Otherwise it seems that SCOTUS would, in effect, be redundant if states can individually rule on constitutional matters.
right, the supreme court could absolutely decide that the states get to decide.
think of it this way… its up to the supreme court to decide how the law was intended. the only specific roles mentioned in the constitution are where the 2/3rds of congress can ‘remove the penalty of being an insurrectionist’… this implies that the states (via congress) have the right to both decide who, and who does not get marked as ‘insurrectionist’.
the house cant decide for individual states, and so each state could be left to decide for themselves… leaving it to an action of congress to undo.
They’d be negating any power they have if they did tho … essentially making SCOTUS useless.
I mean it’s why they’ve sided with citizens/groups who have challenged the state attempts at gun regulation, based on the 2nd Amendment.
its not like they are saying ‘ok, from now on all laws are left to the states’.
were talking about the interpretation of a single clause here, which very specifically involves states rights … and its like youre ignoring the part where it would take their ruling to allows the states to do it.
i dont understand how you think thats removing them from the process.
Because if SCOTUS gives up power in one area of Constitutional law, it opens the door for them losing ruling power over the whole Constitution.
Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution explains that the States have the primary authority over election administration, the “times, places, and manner of holding elections”.
The US Constitution already says it’s the State’s authority. They don’t cede anything because they are just following what the Constitution says on this one specific issue.
Article 3, Section 1 and 2 state that SCOTUS is the supreme court of justice for everything to do with the Constitution. There is nothing there that says SCOTUS can abdicate its job by bumping anything to do with the Constitution to a lower court.
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