• festus@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    The US Supreme Court has some tough choices to make. On one hand you have a piece of the constitution that, at least to this layperson, would seem to clearly disqualify Trump - but absent any clarifying law from Congress it’s really hard to figure out how to implement it. Do you let States do it? What if a Republican state official says Biden is an insurrectionist? How would Biden challenge that? What court would hear that challenge? If it’s the state supreme courts, then what if one court disqualifies him and another doesn’t? Do you allow for some states to disqualify candidates and others not, or does the Supreme Court have to take up these cases each election year? What’s the threshold for insurrection? Should it require a criminal conviction? What if Trump were charged with insurrection and later acquitted - can he now run again?

    Maybe they might punt it off to Congress and say that it’s Congress’ responsibility when counting electoral college votes to decide if a candidate is qualified or not, but now you’ve just given cover to Republicans to reject presidential election results they don’t like if they happen to win enough seats in Congress.

    Tl;dr - from my perspective they have to either ignore the constitution and invite the chaos of another possible Trump presidency, or acknowledge the constitution and invite (additional) chaos into the election system. If Congress functioned maybe a decent law could be written but fat chance of that.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Biden would go to court to challenge it. Just like Trump did. That’s the answer. Not enforcing laws for fear of bad faith actors is appeasement and ends badly everytime.

      Also states DQ people all the time. Not old enough, Not a citizen, etc…

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      but absent any clarifying law from Congress it’s really hard to figure out how to implement it.

      OK yeah but that’s literally the supreme court’s JOB.

      But if they rule it as self executing (which it almost certainly is), we can expect a clusterfuck stateside for the foreseeable future from Republicans. Though, that may be a feature for them, not a bug.

      Best case scenario, I guess, would be the SC deciding eligibility is a federal thing not a state thing, AND that trump is ineligible to run.

      Though that’d make him a martyr… But allowing him to run after a coup attempt is a terrible precident as well…

      I don’t think we’re winning no matter how this turns out, boys.

      • ohlaph@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        Allowing him to run after a failed coup attempt would invite others to attempt another coup. Good points.

    • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      It absolutely is self-executing. From the text of the 14th Amendment:

      But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

      So it follows that Trump would be disqualified absent any action from Congress, since they can only vote to lift such a restriction, not on whether or not to impose it.