Justice Sotomayor's concurrence in Trump v. Anderson further persuades me that this Court decision, however pragmatically desirable it may be, is a constitutional clusterf**k.
"Allowing Colorado to do so would, we agree, create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles"
Uh, what? What is federalism except a state-by-state patchwork? We have, it appears, a Supreme Court Justice (or three) who don't even know what the f**k federalism is."That [the patchwork argument] is enough to resolve this case."
This is some serious nonsense. The patchwork of a candidate being on some state ballots but not others is the norm for third party candidates, so at the least they must make a well-developed argument for why there is a constitutionally different standard for one of the major parties - which are constitutionally unrecognized, much less distinguished from minor parties."To allow Colorado to take a presidential candidate off the ballot under Section 3 would imperil the Framers’ vision of “a Federal Government directly responsible to the people.”
More nonsense. Applied generally, this would mean state courts can't enforce any constitutional barriers to a candidate. It's a weak argument."nothing in Section 3’s text supports the majority’s view of how federal disqualification efforts must operate. Section 3 states simply that '[n]o person shall' hold certain positions and offices if they are oathbreaking insurrectionists. Amdt. 14. Nothing in that unequivocal bar suggests that implementing legislation enacted under Section 5 is 'critical' ... In fact, the text cuts the opposite way. Section 3 provides that when an oathbreaking insurrectionist is disqualified, 'Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.' It is hard to understand why the Constitution would require a congressional supermajority to remove a disqualification if a simple majority could nullify Section 3’s operation by repealing or declining to pass implementing legislation."
Spot on."nothing else in the rest of the Fourteenth Amendment supports the majority’s view. Section 5 gives Congress the “power to enforce [the Amendment] by appropriate legislation.” Remedial legislation of any kind, however, is not required. All the Reconstruction Amendments (including the due process and equal protection guarantees and prohibition of slavery) “are self-executing,” meaning that they do not depend on legislation."
Spot on, but also why this concurrence should be a dissent.