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
This is political cowardice, not good and proper separated powers keeping each other in check.
That is democracy, they have to rule based on the law, and they err on the side of innocence. I think a court that prefers for the elected people to make policy decisions instead of them is better than a court that sets its own policy.
There is no side of innocence in determining eligibility for office. The requirements laid out in the main body of the Constitution already make it clear that holding the office of President is not an inalienable right.
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?
It requires no conviction.
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.
Literally nothing. If they were able to they would do it already, in several cases they are kind of half-assedly trying. Mutually assured destruction isn’t the principle of operation when one side is generally acting in good faith and the other side is actively pulling the copper out of the walls.
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.
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.
Defund the Supreme Court.
