Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

It could be worse. Vance could have said “post-menopausal sows.” Waiting for that audiotape to surface.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Dead end MAGA boomers crying about Talyor Swift being a Dem is my kind of music. Turn it up.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Cole is on a roll !

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

I was promised a recession.

It’s easier to kill a dangerous animal than a man who just happens to have different thoughts/values than one’s own.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Books are my comfort food!

People are weird.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Supreme Court Ruling Today – What To Look For and What It Means

Supreme Court Ruling Today – What To Look For and What It Means

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Supreme Court Ruling Today – What To Look For and What It Means
Assuming that the announcement from the Supreme Court today is a ruling in the Colorado 14th Amendment insurrection case, this seems like it will be very helpful as we look to understand what it says and what it means.

Update: Supreme Court ruling  (per curium)  Which means that all justices are concerting on this opinion.

SCOTUSblog is live blogging.

I’ll update with specifics after the announcement, but in the meantime, something to think about.

When the Supreme Court Rules on Colorado’s Ballot, Pay Attention to What It Doesn’t Say  (Slate)

Excerpt

When the Supreme Court issues its opinion in the ballot access case, therefore, smart court watchers will be looking for not only the legal bottom line on whether Trump can stay on the ballot, but also what signal the court sends the public about Trump’s underlying conduct. Because pending before it is a case in which the Colorado courts expressly found that Trump did engage in an insurrection. In fact, every entity that has ruled on the merits of that question—from the Colorado courts, to the Maine Secretary of State, to now the Illinois judiciary, to the findings of the January 6 Commission and the House impeachment inquiry—have so agreed. Will the Court reject all those conclusions? Will the Court take this opportunity to absolve Trump of insurrection? If the Court declines to do that, it will speak more loudly than whatever it formally holds on the technical legal arcana it seems likely to focus on in its opinion.

That doesn’t mean everyone will hear it. If history is any guide, one likely reaction from the press will be a host of “Trump exculpated!” stories, in much the same way the Mueller Report was treated as a blanket exoneration. It’s a forgivable error. Technical legal arcana is technical and arcane and “Trump exculpated!” is journalistic dopamine. But that doesn’t mean reporters should knock over the proverbial phone booths in rushing, en masse to announce that Trump has “won” or “lost” the case once the opinion is released. Journalism focused on the horserace and not the stakes will be unlikely to capture the fact that the court may not dispute Trump’s participation in an insurrection when presented with the chance to do so, although that latter is the headline as well as a fact more relevant to the things voters will need to weigh come November. To our minds, “Court rules Trump can remain on ballot, Declines to absolve him of Insurrection” feels like a more accurate framing of the actual stakes of the Colorado case, assuming the case goes how we anticipate.

h/t Mousebumples for the article

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

87Comments

  5. 5.

    fancycwabs

    As much as I don’t like Trump on the ballot, that’s the right call.

    Section 5 of the 14th Amendment says very specifically that Congress was supposed to pass laws to keep insurrectionists off the ballot, and Congress, like usual, didn’t do their fucking job.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot?” See 601 U. S. ___ (2024). Concluding that it did, we now reverse.

  7. 7.

    Marcopolo

    As someone who follows & loves Elie Mystal, at least nothing SCOTUS does surprises me anymore.  Also, fuck the Supreme Court!

  8. 8.

    WaterGirl

    This case raises the question whether the States, in addi- tion to Congress, may also enforce Section 3. We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal of- fices, especially the Presidency.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    States should be in the business of disqualifying potential Democratic voters instead. #GOP6

  10. 10.

    RaflW

    @fancycwabs:  “Congress was supposed to pass laws to keep insurrectionists off the ballot, and Congress Republicans, like usual, didn’t do their fucking job.”

    Or, one can argue, Republicans did their partisan job, but not the job the constitution & framers imagined. And really, in all this, f*ck Mitch McConnell.

  11. 11.

    WaterGirl

    But nothing in the Constitution delegates to the States any power to en- force Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.

  13. 13.

    CaseyL

    Oh, ffs. The word “tradition” has been wielded again in the decision. SCOTUS saying “Nothing new can be done,” again (nicely eliding the fact that no US President has previously incited an insurrection).

    The good thing about this is that Red states can’t toss Democrats off their ballots. That’s no small thing, because many Red states had already threatened to do just that.

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    For the reasons given, responsibility for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with Congress and not the States. The judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court therefore cannot stand.

    All nine Members of the Court agree with that result.

    Our colleagues writing separately further agree with many of the reasons this opinion provides for reaching it. See post, Part I (joint opinion of SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, and JACKSON, JJ.); see also post, p. 1 (opinion of BARRETT, J.). So far as we can tell, they object only to our taking into ac- count the distinctive way Section 3 works and the fact that Section 5 vests in Congress the power to enforce it. These are not the only reasons the States lack power to enforce this particular constitutional provision with respect to fed- eral offices. But they are important ones, and it is the com- bination of all the reasons set forth in this opinion—not, as some of our colleagues would have it, just one particular ra- tionale—that resolves this case. In our view, each of these reasons is necessary to provide a complete explanation for the judgment the Court unanimously reaches.

    The judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court is reversed. The mandate shall issue forthwith.

    It is so ordered.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    The libs object to the GOP justices deciding that conviction in court is not enough to disqualify Trump.

    ETA: They cite Breyer in Bush v. Gore!

  16. 16.

    Miss Bianca

    Jesus, these assholes. You don’t think that maybe, just maybe, they could have rendered a fucking decision on this a little sooner than *the literal day before* Colorado’s presidential primary election date? To say nothing of the fact that early and mail-in voting means people have *been* voting for days already, if not weeks!

    So, what if they *do* decide to side with the CO Supreme Court decision? What, you’re just going to say to CO GOP voters, “Oops! We just retroactively invalidated your votes! Hey, sorry about that!”

    Not that I would have a *problem* with that scenario, necessarily, you understand…it’s just the principle of the thing

    ETA: Well, apparently they ruled against the CO Supreme Court decision, so my objections are moot. But still. Way to go, SCOTUS, you fuckers.

  18. 18.

    Eolirin

    @Baud: Well, as much as leaving that on the table would be ideal, it’s kind of moot to Trump specifically being on the ballot given the court’s delay of the Jan 6th trial.

  20. 20.

    Eolirin

    @Baud: And also let’s be honest here, the next Trump like Republican that wins the white house is going to end democracy with the complete support of Republicans in congress, and if a Democrat tries to do an insurrection they’ll be impeached successfully and congress will absolutely disqualify them. So it’s not like it’s ever going to matter in practice.

  23. 23.

    TBone

    Of a certain TV commentator, it has been said “Remember, his biggest goal in his TV appearance is not to piss off the court, since appearing before them is really where he makes his living. Arguing that child slavery is okay, for instance.”

  24. 24.

    Mousebumples

    https://bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social/post/3kmux6ocqrw2l

    Folks: SCOTUS said that the means to DQ someone is via a law passed by Congress. It noted that there is a law passed by Congress, still on the books, 18 USC 2383.

    Last week it said there was no double jeopardy problem with charging him with it.

    Not a huge surprise. The delays in everything with the immunity case pending USSC review is Not Great, but who knows.

    I’m going to keep supporting Biden/Harris and work to GOTV with postcards.

  25. 25.

    Brachiator

    @TBone:

    It’s here. 9-0. States’ rights in administering each election is gone

    Not quite. The Court is saying that only Congress can use the 14th Amendment test.

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mousebumples: Not a huge surprise. The delays in everything with the immunity case pending USSC review is Not Great, but who knows.

    I’m going to keep supporting Biden/Harris and work to GOTV with postcards.

    What the mouse said.

  33. 33.

    Mike in NC

    This is the court that Moscow Mitch and Fat Bastard gave us. They will never rule in favor of the people. Fuck ’em.

  34. 34.

    Another Scott

    I was suspicious of the reasoning in the public testimony, even by people on our side, that seemed to be of the opinion that a state enforcing its own rules about ballot access was somehow denying the country as a whole the right to choose a president. Yeah, it could be weaponized by monsters, but we’ve seen that monsters can weaponize anything.

    The 14th Amendment was drafted by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. Their report is here (836 pages of scans from 1866). I haven’t skimmed it. I would assume that if they thought that enabling federal legislation was required there would be some discussion about it. Scans of the Congressional Globe exist of the public debate in the House and Senate as well.

    Whatever the question, the SCOTUS won’t save us. There’s no One Weird Trick. We have to vote the monsters out of office, and have a large enough majority to make the long overdue changes to our system to keep the monsters (elected and unelected) from breaking our government.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    Ryan

    So, what’s the deal here?  Trump wins the general, and then, what, Trump has to prove he didn’t insurrect in order to serve?

  36. 36.

    Bupalos

    Barrett’s thing is kind of hilarious.

    “Look, the majority shouldn’t be extending this past the federalism question to article 5 enforcement. But since they did, let’s all calm down and ignore that they did, because it would be better if everyone just calmed down and looked away.”

  37. 37.

    TBone

    @Omnes Omnibus: my comment in the previous thread said I’m keeping my head down and going about my daily business as per usual.  It’s a busy day around these parts IRL.

  40. 40.

    John S.

    @Ryan::

    Trump has to prove he didn’t insurrect in order to serve?

    It’s up to Congress to act in accordance with Section 3. If they fail to act, who is going to hold them to account? Nobody.

  42. 42.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I expected this would be 9-0.  Even the liberals on the court would want to set a high bar to disqualification.  I’m not a lawyer, so I wasn’t sure, but yeah, this seemed the likeliest result.  I don’t see it affecting the election, since the states that would disqualify Trump are the states he was never going to win.

  43. 43.

    Waspuppet

    @CaseyL: They’ll find a way if they want to.

    But that doesn’t mean reporters should knock over the proverbial phone booths in rushing, en masse to announce that Trump has “won” or “lost” the case once the opinion is released.

    But they will. Because Trump “won.” When he loses, they are very careful.

    It’s also hard not to notice the court can take into account the importance of a timely decision to the electoral calendar when they want to.

  44. 44.

    Bupalos

    @Ryan: Looks to me like the conservatives extended the question at hand to reverse the plain language of article 5 and put the heavier political lift on those trying to deny an insurrectionist office than on those trying to allow an exception. Trump should have needed a 2/3rds vote to take office, this reverses that to congress having to specifically vote that he can’t take office.

  45. 45.

    RaflW

    @Baud: “They cite Breyer in Bush v. Gore!”

    Oh! That’s bitterly hilarious. They cite the case that the Supreme R’s say isn’t precedent.

  46. 46.

    gvg

    The reasoning for not having states make different decisions for federal offices seems OK. the idea Congress has to deal with it seems problematic, especially this Congress. it says Congress can remove the disability, but what if they won’t? What if the person has committed rebellion? Who says he can’t be inaugurated and what is the process?

  48. 48.

    Jackie

    @schrodingers_cat:

    There is no magic bullet, the Orange Ogre has to be defeated at the polls.

    Yup. Removing TIFG from the ballot would just give MAGAts another reason to revolt while screaming the election was RIGGED! And STOLEN!!!

    So we have to do our part and give TIFG a decisive loss via our votes!

  49. 49.

    John S.

    @Waspuppet:

    Normally I would agree, but it doesn’t appear to be going that way just yet. Here’s a random sampling.

    CNN: Supreme Court keeps Trump on Colorado ballot

    AP News: Supreme Court restores Trump to ballot

    The Guardian: US supreme court ruling allows Trump to stay on primary ballots nationwide

    Looks like it’s being framed as the SCOTUS is a friend to Trump. Which should really help to further crater public opinion about an institution that’s already in the toilet.

  50. 50.

    hrprogressive

    While the idea of Trump being DQ’ed via the 14th Amendment was always a bit of a reach, a ruling like this also means that all those fascist states can’t just decide “Well, fine, we’re going to DQ the Democrat because Reasons”.

    Does that mean it was a “good” decision? Not necessarily, because a number of folks have argued about the “self-executing nature” of Section 3.

    The Court here appears to be saying “Section 3 applies to him, and we’re not exonerating him by saying he didn’t commit an insurrection, but because Section 5 says Congress has to enforce Section 3, and because Congress hasn’t enforced Section 3, there’s no merit to the states claiming Section 3 applies here, so, tough shit basically”.

    I know this isn’t going to make a lot of people happy but I have to be honest I never, ever, thought the 14th was going to be the reason Trump doesn’t get back in the White House again.

    Feel how you feel about it, and continue to work on educating the public about the dangers of a Fascist States of America and continue to work towards re-electing as many Democrats as possible while reasonably free and reasonably fair elections are still possible.

  52. 52.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I’m not outraged by this.  We need to beat Trump at the polls and I’d rather have him lose CO fair and square.

  54. 54.

    RaflW

    @John S.: There could be a barn-door-after-the-horse-trampled-the-constitution effort to vote the intransigent Republicans out in 2026.

    But, it’s not that clear that we’ll have elections in 2026 if Dotard is PresiRegent. Or they’ll be even more of a sham than the current gerrymandered non-contests we have for about 392 current House seats.

    The Scotus suddenly re-locates ‘history’ but of course ignores that the Founders wouldn’t have anticipated House members sitting on their electoral franchises for unbudgeable decades.

  56. 56.

    Lyrebird

    @Baud: @WaterGirl: Thanks for the news and the link!  Let’s let Justices Sotomayor Kagan and Brown be heard:

    Although we agree that Colorado cannot enforce
    Section 3, we protest the majority’s effort to use this case to
    define the limits of federal enforcement of that provision.
    Because we would decide only the issue before us, we concur
    only in the judgment.

  57. 57.

    sdhays

    @hrprogressive: I personally had a problem with the state itself deciding that someone was an insurrectionist. It seemed to me that that question should be decided by a Federal court. It sounds like the liberal justices also thought that.

  58. 58.

    dr. bloor

    @hrprogressive: Second this.  There’s little doubt the remaining three justices with integrity would like to see Trump fall off the face of the Earth, but this would have opened a dangerous can of worms.

  59. 59.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @hrprogressive: This is where I am too.  When CO ruling first came out my first thought was “this will never fly with SCOTUS.”  The fact that Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson all signed-on, reassures me that it isn’t just naked Trump-humping by the Court.

  60. 60.

    Mousebumples

    https://bsky.app/profile/pwnallthethings.bsky.social/post/3kmuxm5jdgi2z

    Colorado should, on remand, note that Congress passed by majority in both chambers that Trump is disqualified by 14AS3 and keep him off the ballot and make them appeal it again

     

    https://bsky.app/profile/pwnallthethings.bsky.social/post/3kmuz24ecym2e

    For the foregoing reasons, fuck you scotus, read a fucking newspaper, lots of love, Colorado

    (don’t live in Colorado, not a lawyer, but I’d be amused by that timeline)

  61. 61.

    Another Scott

    @Another Scott:

    I found a few minues. This seems relevant:

    Page #27

    REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE. XXI department. The constitutional form of government is thereby practically de stroyed, and its powers absorbed in the Executive. And while your committee do not for a moment impute to the President any such design, but cheerfully concede to him the most patriotic motives, they cannot but look with alarm upon a precedent so fraught with danger to the republic. Ninth. The necessity of providing adequate safeguards for the future, before restoring the insurrectionary States to a participation in the direction of public affairs, is apparent from the bitter hostility to the government and people of the United States yet existing throughout the conquered territory, as proved incon- testably by the testimony of many witnesses and by undisputed facts. Tenth. The conclusion of your committee therefore is, that the so-called Con federate States are not, at present, entitled to representation in the Congress of the United States ; that, before allowing such representation, adequate security for future peace and safety should be required ; that this can only be found in such changes of the organic law as shall determine the civil rights and privi leges of all citizens in all parts of the republic, shall place representation on an equitable basis, shall fix a stigma upon treason, and protect the loyal people against future claims for the expenses incurred in support of rebellion and for manumitted slaves, together with an express grant of power in Congress to en force those provisions. To this end they offer a joint resolution for amending the Constitution of the United States, and the two several bills designed to carry the same into effect, before referred to. Before closing this report, your committee beg leave to state that the specific recommendations submitted by them are the result of mutual concession, after a long and careful comparison of conflicting opinions. Upon a question of such magnitude, infinitely important as it is to the future of the republic, it was not to be expected that all should think alike. Sensible of the imperfections of the scheme, your committee submit it to Congress as the best they could agree upon, in the hope that its imperfections may be cured, and its deficiencies sup plied, by legislative wisdom ; and that, when finally adopted, it may tend to restore peace and harmony to the whole country, and to place our republican institutions on a more stable foundation. W. P. FESSENDEN. JAMES W. GRIMES. IRA HARRIS. J. M. HOWARD. GEORGE II. WILLIAMS. THADDEUS STEVENS. ELIHU B. WASHBURNE. JUSTIN S. MORRILL. JNO. A. BINGHAM. ROSCOE CONKLING. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL.

    (Emphasis added.)

    I still don’t see how the SCOTUS can casually throw out part of Colorado’s Constitution and rules on this, but the framers of the 14th explicitly said that the US Congress has the power of enabling legislation.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  64. 64.

    Eyeroller

    @RaflW: Gerrymandering is named for Elbridge Gerry, one of those Founding Fathers.  So it was invented almost immediately. In fairness to Gerry, the districts were drawn by a state legislature (Massachusetts) when he was governor, and he was supposedly not entirely happy about it, but he signed the bill anyway. He was, however, quite partisan in other regards.

  65. 65.

    akita

    Amy Coney Barrett:

    In my judgment, this is not the time to amplify disagreement with
    stridency. The Court has settled a politically charged issue
    in the volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up. For present, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.

    In other words,  you plebes should show us the same deference for this   9-0 as is shown toward Brown v Board of Education since they are moral equivalents.

  66. 66.

    Jackie

    I like this take from Neal Katyal and Andrew Weissmann on MSNBC:

    Speaking to MSNBC, former senior Department of Justice prosecutor Andrew Weissmann and former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal both pointed out that the state didn’t address if Trump is guilty of insurrection — which the Colorado decision had ruled.

    The court only ruled that the states can’t decide if the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which says that anybody engaging in insurrection against the U.S. is barred from public office, applies to the presidency.

    “The issue of the facts, is he an insurrectionist or not, was not before the court, and they do not in any way that I’ve seen so far, and after quick skimming, take that on to say that we are saying that that was an incorrect, factual finding,” said Weissmann. “They’re simply deciding this as a legal basis.”

    Much more explanation/opinions at the link:

    https://www.rawstory.com/trump-14th-amendment-legal-analysts/

  68. 68.

    Matt McIrvin

    They decided it as a state vs. Federal power issue. I can’t get too outraged about that.

  70. 70.

    Another Scott

    @Jackie: AFAIK, courts of appeals like the SCOTUS never (unless they’re acting under their “original jurisdiction” (or whatever the term is) playing field) rule on the facts.  They’re not “tryers of fact”.  They rule on whether the law was correctly applied to the facts found by the lower courts.

    I’m kinda surprised that Katyal and others are talking like that’s a big deal.

    IANAL.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  72. 72.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Mousebumples: Not a huge surprise. The delays in everything with the immunity case pending USSC review is Not Great, but who knows.
    I’m going to keep supporting Biden/Harris and work to GOTV with postcards.

    @Omnes Omnibus: What the mouse said.​

     The wolf concurs. And has 5 postcards to write.
    I’m subverting from within: writing to FL to sign up Democrats for FL Vote By Mail. It’s like being in a heist movie! I’m the quiet one that you don’t want to piss off. :)​​​​

  73. 73.

    New Deal democrat

    @Another Scott:

    I was suspicious of the reasoning in the public testimony, even by people on our side, that seemed to be of the opinion that a state enforcing its own rules about ballot access was somehow denying the country as a whole the right to choose a president. Yeah, it could be weaponized by monsters, but we’ve seen that monsters can weaponize anything.

    The 14th Amendment was drafted by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction. Their report is here (836 pages of scans from 1866). I haven’t skimmed it. I would assume that if they thought that enabling federal legislation was required there would be some discussion about it. Scans of the Congressional Globe exist of the public debate in the House and Senate as well.

    As someone who long long ago in a galaxy far far away read the entirety of the Congressional debates on the 14th Amendment, a few comments.

    Yes, the original Constitution clearly says States run the Presidential election.

    But the whole 14th Amendment is about displacing State authority and giving it to the Federal government in the areas defined.

    One of those areas so defined is the Insurrection clause.

    There were many cases where Congress decided on whether candidates for the House or Senate were disqualified or not. This was done under their right to determine the disqualifications of their own members.

    This is the first time in history that the candidate involved was not running for the House or Senate, but rather the Presidency.

    So I am not surprised that the Court unanimously, including the liberal Justices, decided that the issue must be resolved on a Federal, not State by State, basis.

  74. 74.

    Hoodie

    @Jackie: They specifically wanted to avoid that issue.  There are good reasons to do so because there really isn’t any federal framework for conducting a factfinding for insurrection other than 18 USC 2383.   An interesting question that does not seem to be answered by the opinion is whether a state could pre-emptively remove someone from the ballot because of a conviction under that statute.   That statute says that such a person cannot hold a federal office, but does that mean that a state could use that as a basis for keeping someone off the ballot? They seemed to imply that it could, but it’s not entirely clear.

    The basis they used for reversing the COSC was pretty much what I expected, but that does not mean that the interpretation the COSC made was literally wrong.  One of problems with statutory and constitutional interpretation is that there isn’t necessarily one “literal” interpretation.   The COSC was not out of bounds in reading the 14th Amendment the way they did, e.g., they didn’t interpret in a way that directly contradicted the wording.  Statutes and constitutional provisions can be poorly worded (think 2nd Amendment) and, even if fairly well written, can still be ambiguous because context gets imported into any written work.

  75. 75.

    Spc

    @fancycwabs: Ywah. Another angle would have been the necessity of some sort of conviction – either by Congress or a federal court. Otherwise Biden could be removed in say, Georgia, for “reasons.”

  76. 76.

    wjca

    @RaflW: “Congress was supposed to pass laws to keep insurrectionists off the ballot, and Congress Republicans, like usual, didn’t do their fucking job.”

    Or, one can argue, Republicans did their partisan job, but not the job the constitution & framers imagined. And really, in all this, f*ck Mitch McConnell.

    That amendment is a century and a half old.  It’s seriously simplistic to blame the current Congress for the lack of enabling legislation.

    Their predecessors clearly deserve equal blame.  Especially since the need was apparently so obvious as to get unanimous support from the Justices.

  77. 77.

    TBone

    What happened to the qualification standard (requirement, like being 35 y.o. age)  that Luttig insisted was simple, plain language?

    “Ultimately, this lawsuit reached the Colorado Supreme Court, which ruled that Trump would be disqualified from the 2024 ballot. Specifically, the Colorado Supreme Court found that the office of the president does fall under the requirements of section three, and thus applies to Trump because he previously held office as president, that Trump did engage in an insurrection on Jan. 6, and that Trump’s speech that day was not protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects free speech.

    The much-contested standard the Colorado Supreme Court laid out for what constitutes an insurrection was a “concerted and public use of force or threat of force by a group of people to hinder or prevent the U.S. government from taking the actions necessary to accomplish a peaceful transfer of power in this country.”

    https://www.jurist.org/features/2024/02/06/explainer-whats-at-stake-in-the-us-supreme-courts-hearing-on-trumps-ballot-eligibility-after-capitol-attacks/

    I haven’t seen any discussion of that yet, which is why I’m perplexed.  The question before the Court mooted it?  I’ve been distracted by a few things occurring simultaneously IRL and haven’t caught up.

  81. 81.

    Another Scott

    @Paul in KY: PDF word wrapping.

    It would be really nice if the various clipboards and text entry fields were smarter about cut-and-paste from PDFs.  But, like printing on Windows, we’ll probably have to suffer with it for 30 years or so whether we like it or not…  :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @Paul in KY: Remember in the olden days that people would split a word between two lines because of spacing or whatever it was?

    The SC must use some old-fashioned technology or something.  Hard-coded which probably looked right in their document, but doesn’t when copied and the wrapping is different

    edit: I see that Another Scott got their first.

  83. 83.

    TBone

    @TBone: Marc Elias’s email/ opinion talks about the same focus (administration) and he shares my opinion of today’s ruling.  His substack recently became for paid subscribers but he sent a free email (can’t copy pasta successfully here).

  85. 85.

    Tim in SF

    @TBone: “It’s here. 9-0. States’ rights in administering each election is gone”

    That’s the bad news. The good news is that this may clear the way for national election standards at some point down the road.

  86. 86.

    wjca

    @anitamargarita: it doesn’t seem clear to me that ennobling legislation is needed.

    No legislation, no act of man or of God Himself, could ennoble TIFG.  Although, to be fair, I suppose the devil could make him a prince of hell — but Satan has better taste, and probably little use for a (by then failed) con man.

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