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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   26472 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 15, 2024

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Roberts is conservative in that he doesn’t want to trigger chaos. Even if he 100% agrees with the Colorado ruling he’s going to realize a self executing 14th amendment means that any State can just decide to not let a candidate on the ballot.

The end result would be selecting Presidents by the state legislature.

But there is a also a big gap between conservatives don’t like seeing rioting and deciding to agree that rioting is the same as insurrection. Words still need to have meaning.

I think a universal reversal with the Democrat judges voting with the conservatives to reverse is far more likely than the conservatives banning Trump.

It would be extremely ironic if Trump's elector slate shenanigans end up actually achieving the desired result for every subsequent election but not for any of the ones that involve Trump.

I just don't see the court radically changing the political process like that though.

I do not think so either. I can’t convince Reddit that this opens the door to the 14th being used against any politician but it’s my belief it could be under the Colorado standard.

I think back to Roberts keeping Obamacare when he could have used the tax but to throw the whole thing out. He’s not going to want courts taking too much power and will find a way to squash this. Personally, I assume Roberts probably hates Trump but any personal opinions he has on Trump won’t keep him from seeing the precedence allowing Colorado’s ruling to go thru being a problem.

The big issue with going back to states legislatures pick their candidate would be it would be extremely unpopular. Many might not like the electoral college but Americans are still going to want the vote on this. Even if a good legal argument existed for this maneuver the court would still find a way to block it because of unpopularity.

Of course, selecting presidents by state legislature is still completely legal federally and how it used to be done, I believe. But this would likely be weaponized in other races.

If a state legislature decided to ignore all votes for Trump when selecting their electors, then those voters might well have a case under Section 2 of the 14th Amendment. (Unless those voters' "participation in rebellion" could be decided by the states?) Of course, a state might find the constitutional penalty of losing electors superior to the possibility of a Trump victory, if the latter has any real chance of occurring at all.

Seems unlikely to me. There's plenty of precedent. In 1892, Grover Cleveland wasn't on the ballot in five states, in 1948, Truman wasn't on the ballot in Alabama, and in 1964, Johnson wasn't on the ballot in Alabama. There were a few other cases. Ballots weren't done the same way at the time of the passage of the amendment, as well.

I'm hopeful, but there's a risk that Roberts may not be choosing from the full possibility space, but from a small number of best alternatives to negotiated agreement. And a lot of those leave states (and worse!) to just decide to not let a candidate on the ballot (and worse!).

I think it is 7-2 with Kagan siding with the conservatives

Eh, I think if they can’t get Kagan to vote with them there’s a pretty good chance of Sotomayor and KJB voting with her to get unanimity.

That would be my guess for the consensus here which tends to have an assumption Kagan is a real judge and Sotomoyer/Brown are just partisan votes.

Personally I’m hoping they step up here and vote with the conservatives.

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