Court rules Trump to stay on the ballots.

The United States Supreme Court made it very clear that state courts, state legislatures or state officials have no authority to enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.  By “very clear,” I mean it was a unanimous decision.

No one should be surprised.  It was the only decision that makes any constitutional or common sense.  Democrat efforts to argue this as a states’ rights issue makes no more sense than when they tried to ignore the United States Constitution with slavery, Jim Crow laws and so-called separate-but-equal school segregation as states’ rights issues.

The actions of Colorado, Maine and Illinois to remove Trump from the ballot would make a mockery of presidential elections.  It would lead to arbitrary decisions by various states to remove unfavored candidates in a hodge-podge of state elections. Very simply, it would end the concept of a national presidential election.

Yes, the Amendment is about insurrection as a specific issue, but so far that has only been a matter of arbitrary political opinions in terms of Trump.  Those proffering the argument that states can and should remove Trump from state ballots are proposing it as a political process – as opposed to a legal or constitutional process. 

We are living through a case in point.  While there have been accusations of insurrection, what happened on January 6, 2021, is still a matter of political opinion.  My own – and millions of others – is that January 6^th was a riot, not an insurrection.  The issue of riot versus insurrection has never been adjudicated in a court of law – and only a handful of the thousand on Capitol Hill that day have been found guilty of attempting an insurrection.  The vast majority of other indictees have been found guilty of crimes commonly associated with rioting.

The Colorado Supreme Court opined that Trump was an insurrectionist as the basis of their decision to remove him from the ballot, but that case was not about the insurrection.  They claimed that Trump was an insurrectionist, but never actually put him on trial for the crime of insurrection.  The existence of an insurrection, and Trump’s potential involvement, was arbitrarily assumed by the justices.  Even Special Counsel Jack Smith has not charged Trump with insurrection – and that is THE major case about the events on Capitol Hill.

Consider what could happen if the United States Supreme Court had not ended the folly of states taking presidential candidates off the ballot by politically biased whim – as did the Secretary of State in Maine.  In Illinois, the determination was made by a Chicago judge who normally handles traffic cases.

One can appreciate just how wrong Colorado, Maine and Illinois were to have been struck down by a UNANIMOUS court decision – something rarely seen in politically-charged major cases. 

Still, the genetic Trump haters persist. They say the Supreme Court was wrong.  That the Court made that portion of the Fourteenth Amendment null and void.  They claim that the High Court made the decision even though they determined that Trump was an “oath breaker” and “insurrectionist.”  That is what members of the liberal faction said in their CONCURRING opinions.  Note … those were not DISSENTING opinions. 

In fact, they were nothing more than arbitrary PERSONAL opinions since the question of Trump’s culpability as an “oath breaker” or “insurrectionist” was not the official matter before the Court.  It was not a matter before the Colorado courts … or in Maine’s Secretary of State’s opinion … or the decision by the Chicago judge to remove Trump in Illinois.  In fact, Trump is not being prosecuted for insurrection anywhere in the country. 

Those on the radical left have decided that the Court threw the matter to Congress to act, and that will never happen.  Ergo no proven insurrectionist will ever be denied running for office.  In fact, people can still be charged with insurrection by federal courts, and if convicted, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment could be invoked.

Characteristic of the leftwing anti-Trump spin was Attorney Lawrence Tribe – a regular guest on MSNBC. (Need I say more?)  In a display of intellectual dishonesty and mental gymnastics, Tribe claimed it was actually a 5 to 4 decision, with five conservative justices producing the majority.  He even claimed that the pivotal vote was Justice Thomas, who he said should have recused himself.  That is a lot of bovine byproduct piled into one statement.  It demonstrates how far some of the more radical leftwingers will spin fairy tales.

Two facts Tribe is trying to obfuscate.  It was a 9 to 0 unanimous decision declaring that states do not have the authority to remove federal candidates from the ballot – especially the President.  And Thomas was not a pivotal vote any more than any one of the other nine.  In a 9 to 0 decision, there is no “pivotal vote.”  And the Court did NOT declare Trump to be an “oath breaker” or “insurrectionist” … period.  That is nothing more than a specious campaign narrative proffered in the court of public opinion.

The Supreme Court decision was a correct one – the only correct possibility.  It was a strong decision without a single dissent.  Yes, Trump could be seen as a winner.  But so is the Constitution and the nation.  It exposes the extent to which the anti-Trumpers will go to stop him out of fear that the American people may reelect him.  The Supreme Court showed its value as a pillar of our constitutional democracy by ignoring the conflicting political narratives of the moment to uphold the Constitution.

So, there ‘tis.