Oh look another illegal power grab by the supreme dipshits. 14th amendment section 3 states only Congress may remove an insurrectionist’s inability to hold office, not SCOTUS.
Unfortunately not a new power grab, they’ve long held that their judicial review is sacrosanct, and they get to pick and choose not just the cases they hear, but also what issues within that case they feel like legislating reviewing. Same again here, the RNC asked three questions and they left most of it wellll alone:
The Questions Presented are:
- Whether the President falls within the list of officials subject to the disqualification provision of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment?
- Whether Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment is self-executing to the extent of allowing states to remove candidates from the ballot in the absence of any Congressional action authorizing such process?
- Whether the denial to a political party of its ability to choose the candidate of its choice in a presidential primary and general election violates that party’s First Amendment Right of Association?
#1 & 3 were completely ignored because they’re only willing to craft big legislation opinions on conservative/originalist topics, but “show respect for the lower courts” when it’s convenient for SCotUS
They focused in on the state w/o congress aspect of #2, because it’s the weakest part of the Colorado case unfortunately, and allowed this fig-leaf opt out on disqualification being kicked back to Congress
That’s not how the opinion works. The Supremes said states can’t remove candidates from the federal ballot under the insurrection clause. They can remove state candidates. It doesn’t rule on anything else.
So how do they remove someone who isn’t of age or a natural born citizen?
That’s a very good question, because I don’t think it’s ever been a real issue. Not among “serious” candidates (read: not some rando third party with zero chance).
Those factors are more mechanical. Being of age isn’t a judgement issue unless someone says there’s a mistake on their birth certificate or something. Natural born citizen is usually mechanical. Most candidates have been clearly born in the United States, and there’s no debate about it. There was a little question around McCain, who was born in Panama, but there was clearly an act of Congress that made kids born there to American service members into citizens. If we take all the claims of the Obama Birthers at face value (which are nonsense), then he’d still be a citizen due to his mother being a citizen.
However, I do think the Birthers uncovered a problem while they fumbled around like idiots. They tried to get Obama off the ballot using the courts, and repeatedly had them dismissed due to lack of standing. If there actually was a valid reason to challenge someone under those requirements, it’s not obvious who can enforce it.
