What’s worse than Lauren Boebert being sanctimonious? How about Lauren Boebert being sanctimonious while playing constitutional scholar? But it’s not unexpected considering the events of the past few hours. Trump world is playing up the SCOTUS decision to leave Trump on the ballot like it was on a par with the second coming of Christ and anybody who has taken a few minutes to read the order or the opinions sees very clearly that all that happened is that Trump was kept on the ballot — as has been predicted would happen — but in no way is this the victory he had hoped for. Jena Griswold, the Colorado Secretary of State understandably took umbrage to the ruling. And she’s right to do so. It opens up a constitutional can of worms. So here’s what Bobo had to contribute, confusion and chaos, framed contentiously. Vintage Bobo.
The Supreme Court unanimously threw out this idiotic and unconstitutional argument.
The fact that you’re still acting like a petulant child because you don’t like Trump is just pathetic.
You have no business in the Secretary of State’s office and shouldn’t oversee an election… https://t.co/sKb6Gv5HEE
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) March 4, 2024
the tweet ends, “in which you have shown a clear bias. You’re unfit. Time for you to be RECALLED!”
Great. Go on that crusade, see how far it gets you. The fact of the matter is that today’s ruling is not some settled thing. It is one of those rulings that will be called into question many times in the years to come. For one thing, if the 14th Amendment is going to be ignored, if any Amendment is going to be ignored, absent an act of Congress, then what good are any of them? You see what I mean about can of worms? NCRM:
Brad Moss declared: “This is awesome. Constitutional amendments are meaningless unless Congress acts to enforce them. To hell with the 22nd amendment.”
The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951, essentially says you can only be president for two terms, depending one certain situations: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
And you see where that goes logically. For one thing, that dovetails with what Trump wants to do, which is stay in office, should he find a way to ever get back into office.
Others pointed to that provision, arguing that former President Barack Obama could in theory serve as president again, unless Congress stops him – based on today’s SCOTUS ruling.
“Anyone have a good point of contact for former President Obama? I have a legal memorandum to send him,” Moss quips.
“Even better,” Moss continues sardonically, “as it just occurred to me: you know that whole requirement in Section 1, Article II of the Constitution, that the president has to be a natural born citizen? Guess what? Absent Congressional action, that provision is meaningless.”
“So under the Court’s legal analysis,” he adds, “if Trump wins but Democrats take the House and hold the Senate, Congress can invalidate Trump’s victory and throw us into chaos? Oh goodie.”
Moss still was not done.
“Here is the craziest part of the majority ruling in the Trump ballot case: it places the burden on federal district attorneys, who are appointed by the incumbent president, to somehow initiate a civil action against the incumbent president for holding office in violation of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. That way, madness lies.”
As for that “unanimous” claim, professor of law and former U.S. Attorney and Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman points out the three liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, “concur on ground that court goes too far in deciding future possible cases. Barrett similarly but more narrowly says court shouldn’t opine that federal legislation the only way to enforce section 3.”
This controversy is not over by a long shot. This has all the earmarks of a case that will be redecided somewhere down the road because it was poorly decided today and raises all of these other issues.
And this is just at first blush. There will be a lot more problems with this case as time goes on and constitutional scholars have a chance to thoroughly examine all of the ramifications. Meanwhile, all that Boebert is doing is missing the point and making a fool out of herself, as always. Now here’s an interesting point: SCOTUS explains that their ruling was done in large part because it would prevent chaos.
Chaos is indeed an issue now, but not the way they’re framing it. In any event, this happens with a lot of cases. A good solution is found, but the Supreme Court decides that social interests made that good solution not so good and so the issue is kicked down the road for a while, until the good solution aligns more with social interests. Take a look at Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board. The dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson largely became the majority ruling in Brown v. Board (the famed civil rights case) but over a hundred years later.
I think constitutional sanity may once again prevail and this case will be revisited at some point and probably decided differently. Needless to say, the big deal now is getting to the immunity case and getting through Trump’s other criminal trials and then voting him into oblivion.
Oh, thank jeebus! Since Amendments are ONLY “suggestions”, let’s dump #2!
I was thinking the same thing. Of course conservatives including and especially those on SCOTUS would argue back that like others the second Amendment has been “incorporated” which gets us into a really dense technical mode of Constitutional law but you know what? There might be a deep blue state willing to take the bull by the horns and enact a strong assault weapons ban and while they’re at it a restriction on magazine capacity for ALL firearms including handguns. Including making mere possession of a magazine that holds more than ten rounds a felony punishable by at least on year in prison, and allowing for far longer prison terms for multiple over ten round magazines.
That would be an “in your face assholes” to SCOTUS. Back during the era of the 14th amendments adoption there weren’t many concerns about enforcement. It was an “it’s obvious even to idiots” type of thing so they didn’t complicate it with language about enforcement. Nor did Congress of the era see any need. It was that fucking obvious. Alas, that was then and this is now. Not only do we have a LOT more idiots on Capitol Hill and in the judiciary, but partisan hacks in the latter. On the conservative side they will say/do ANYTHING to protect a GOPer and ANYTHING to apply the opposite standard to a Democrat.
That’s the question that should be put to every one of them about this decision – if it were Joe Biden or some other Democrat who had done what Trump did before, on and after Jan. 6 if they’d want to use the 14th amendment to keep him off the ballot. OF COURSE they would and if they claim otherwise any journalist asking the question should call them out for blatantly LYING.
The only chaos this court tolerates is stripping women the right to decide about the sanctity of their own bodies. Then it’s OK to overthrow a previous decision and throw the country into chaos state by state. So ladies…on your phucking back…open your legs…and get busy pumping out low wage workers so the oligarchs can have yachts, multiple homes and the phucking good life. Don’t like it? The Supreme Court says PHUCK YOU! Literally and figuratively. No wonder they support a pedophile and serial rapist to be king.