If we can’t disqualify someone without an act of Congress after they’ve become president-elect then section 3 is either a dead letter or a suicide pact. There’s also the problem of why specifically enjoin congress to remove the disability but not to impose it? The reasoning they used to come to these conclusions is twisted and obviously a result of working backwards from a conclusion they already wanted.
Well I’ll agree that I was surprised they said Congress specifically, but I at least do think it’d have to be a federal matter, rather than state’s discretion.
Note this was unanimous. The liberal justices also agreed a state shouldn’t do this. It would be a mess if you opened that up. The GOP would absolutely game that if it were allowed.
In a well functioning version of the US that would mean Congress refuses to certify their state election results. There’s also the problem that this isn’t going away. This kind of leadership crisis has to dealt with as early as possible and we’re kicking the can down the road because we’re afraid of the consequences. (The liberal judges inferred as much in their separate opinion)
But a look at history tells us that the further a crisis like this gets kicked down the road, the bloodier the resolution is when it happens, and the long term situation just gets worse too. The ultimate in can kicking was the French Revolution which saw mass murder of commoners in areas backing the king, and mob warfare in the Capitol.
So while we might weather some limited political violence and a lot of protests now, in the future that ratio flips
In a well functioning version of the US that would mean Congress refuses to certify their state election results.
So now we get into a world where the party in control of congress gets to pick and choose based on whether they agree with the results from that given state. So in this scenario, a likely outcome would have been congress rejecting the electors from Maine, Colorado, and Illinois for daring to ban Trump, and congress happily certifying electors from red states that banned Biden.
This most recent impeachment is strong evidence that fair administration of rules and procedures is the furthest thing from their minds, and it’s all a power play. The last thing congress needs is more well recognized levers to manipulate. Unless of course that lever requires 2/3rds majority, which seems to be fairly hard to get unless everyone really agrees. However, in that case, they’d never pull it on someone like Trump, with half the congress compelled to 100% stand behind him no matter what.
