U.S. Supreme Court Rules that Only Congress Can Enforce Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment

Posted on by March 4, 2024

On March 4, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in Trump v Anderson, 23-719. This is the Colorado ballot access case involving former President Donald Trump. Read it here. It is only 13 pages long and is probbly written by the Chief Justice, although it is unsigned. Justice Amy Comey Barrett wrote a one-page concurrence, and there is a six-page concurrence by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson.

All nine justices agree that states cannot enforce Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. The majority opinion says that only Congress can enforce it. The four concurrences agree that states cannot enforce Section Three, but they say there was no need for the majority to also hold that courts can’t enforce it either.

Nothing in the opinions discusses state power to enforce other qualifications to hold the presidency or to run for president. Nothing in the opinions mentions the authority of political parties over their own nomination process. Nothing is said about whether Trump engaged in insurrection. There is a general philosophy expressed that it is undesirable for states to adjudicate section three because then there would be a patchwork effect. “State-by-state resolution of the question whether Section 3 bars a particular candidate for President from serving would be quite unlikely to yield a uniform answer consistent with the basic principle that ‘the President…represents all the voters of the Nation.'”

Page twelve says, “The ‘patchwork’ would likely result from state enforcement would ‘sever the link that the Framers found so cricical between the National Government and the people of the United States’ as a whole.'” The opinion goes on to criticize a situation in which a presidential candidate is on the ballot in some states but not all of them. This part of the opinion will help to invalidate severe ballot access restrictions that apply to presidential candidates, aside from Section Three matters. Page two of the three-justice concurrence also expresses this point.

As a result of the decision, which relies partly on Anderson v Celebrezze and partly on U.S. Term Limits v Thornton, the influence of both of those decisions is enhanced. It is likely that this opinion dooms any effort by supporters of term limits for Congress to get that 1995 ruling overturned, even though it was 5-4 back in 1995.

Comments

U.S. Supreme Court Rules that Only Congress Can Enforce Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment — 88 Comments

  1. So, Trump will be on the ballot. Trump will win. Trump will save America.

  2. There is a “patchwork effect” now with some some third party and independent candidates being allowed on some state ballots, but not others. Does this ruling imply that it is within the power of Congress to set national standards for ballot access for Presidential candidates?

  5. Perhaps, on the basis of this ruling, Congress could pass an act stating that if a candidate for President is on the ballot in a number of states whose total electoral votes exceed 50% of all the electoral votes, then that candidate must be listed on ALL the ballots of every state where they submit valid slates of electors.

  6. This decision will help bring our country together with Trump as President again.

  8. 1) Think there’s been a few situations where socialist parties put obviously ineligible candidates on the ballot successfully that should have told you that the state powers were limited here.

    2) As for the actual insurrection clause. I mean, read any congressional bioguide entry for a southern/border state Congressman in the late 1800s and you’ll probably notice that they stopped enforcing this clause against former Confederate soldiers who became Congressmen after like 1876ish at the latest.

  9. To clarify, they only ruled with regard to federal offices. They said that states can still use Section 3 to disqualify state officers.

  10. “Walter, that’s not happening. Neither Rethugs nor Doinks are empowering third parties that way.”

    Nevertheless, I can imagine Robert Kennedy, Jr speaking about the “patchwork” of states for which he may be on the ballot.

  12. States have been disqualifying candidates for felony convictions for many years. So if someone is a convicted felon as a result of something they did on January 6th, they’re not gonna be able to run for state office no matter a state’s powers with Article 3.

    Now of course there’s some people who could be disqualified under Article 3 that aren’t felons, which feels like a topic that would lead to someone being sued if the candidate is a big enough fish.

  14. To clarify, states have been disqualifying candidates for *state offices* for felony convictions. Just quickly realized I should have added more words. That’s why some candidates can run for federal offices in states where they can’t run for state office (see: David Duke, or Edwin Edwards circa 2014)

  15. It has long been consensus that congress could pass a bill regulating ballot access for federal office. That is why nine sessions of Congress had such bills, and the authors were first John Conyers (D-Michigan), then Tim Penny (D-Minnesota), the Ron Paul (R-Texas). Ron Paul’s ballot access bill in 1998 got a vote on the House floor, but only 67 congresssmembers voted in favor of it.

  16. One of the biggest ballot access stories in history.

    States can’t kick someone off the ballot just because Bill Redpath hates them.

  17. Another huge win for President Trump, our legitimate duly elected President, on the way to a massive landslide win in November, which will be the biggest win for America ever!

  20. This November, Donald Trump will become the first President since FDR to win three Presidential elections in a row, even though he was robbed of the middle victory. Thank God!

  21. The photo Gadfly used was the same one used by Robert K Stock for a while. Hmmm…

  22. Yet another desperate derp state scheme to take down Trump thwarted. Beep beep!

  24. The only bad part about this ruling is Biden can’t be kicked off the ballot for his engagement of insurrection via the illegals at the southern border.

  25. No need to take Beijing Joe off the ballot. Trump will kick his ass in November!

  26. MINI-MENTION OF 1862 LAW AND 18 USC 2383 ON P. 10

    ZERO MENTION OF —
    28 USC 3231. The district courts of the United States shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the courts of the States, of all offenses against the laws of the United States.
    Nothing in this title shall be held to take away or impair the jurisdiction of the courts of the several States under the laws thereof.
    —
    ZERO POWER, LEGIS/EXEC/JUDIC, IN STATES TO RULE ON 14-3 VIOLATIONS.

    ALSO ZERO MENTION OF 28 USC 1331 [AFTER 1980 AMENDMENT]

    The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.

    [ IE N-O JURISDICTION IN ANY STATE COURT ]

    THE GERRYMANDER OLIGARCHS IN THE CONGRESS MAY SCREW AROUND WITH SOME SPECIAL PROCEDURE RE 14-3]
    —-

    ALSO NO MENTION OF —
    1-8-15 STATES MILITIAS – SUPPRESS INSURRECTIONS
    BRIT REBELLIONS- ESP 1745 LAST GASP EFFORT OF 1688 REGIME TO TAKE POWER [LAST GASP EFFORT OF THE *OLD PRETENDER*-SON OF 1688 JAMES II ]
    THE 1786 SHAY’S REBELLION IN W MASS
    THE 1791-1794 WHISKEY REBELLION IN W PA
    LAW REVIEWS WILL BE MERCILESS ON ALL 9 SCOTUS HACKS AND THEIR USELESS CLERKS

  33. @BH,

    14-3 only applies to oathtakers who later engaged in insurrection.

    In addition, Congress removed any disability except for congressmen and senators from 1859-1863.

    Alexander Stephens who was the CSA VP was effectively pardoned and able to be elected to Congress because he had only served up to 1859.

  34. Thank God for Alexander Stephens and the CSA, and thank God for Trump!

  43. Tomorrow in the first ever Libertarian Presidential Primary election in Oklahoma I still have no preferred candidate between the two who paid the extortion to appear on the ballot; and, by law in Oklahoma I may NOT write-in a preferred candidate.
    If I had the means I would file a lawsuit. Instead I use what I have to spread understanding that the election rigging is a scam by fascists both Democrats and Republicans and accede to by too many Libertarians, Greens and others. The Supreme Court has a deaf ear until you speak precisely into that ear.
    What fascist ballot access censorship?

  49. “This part of the opinion will help to invalidate severe ballot access restrictions that apply to presidential candidates, aside from Section Three matters.”

    Wishful thinking, but it’ll never happen.

  51. All in all, a pretty unsound decision from the nation’s highest court, another example of federal authority gone amuk. This decision wasn’t what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they spoke about states’ rights.

    We don’t need a bloated bureaucracy telling us — at the state, local or individual level — how to interpret the Constitution, how to conduct our elections, or how to live our lives.

    Colorado was within its rights.

  52. Colorado was insane. This decision was totally sound, although it didn’t get into numerous other reasons why Colorado was way off track.

  53. Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits anyone who has previously taken an oath of office (President, Senators, Representatives, and other public officials) from holding public office if they have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States government.

    If shamefully storming the Capitol on January 6th of 2021 wasn’t an act of insurrection or rebellion against a newly-elected administration, what was it?

  54. Trump wasn’t involved you fucking commie retard. Do you even know what peacefully means?

  55. Bye Bye Trump. Congress Democrats allied with RINO’s will get him kicked off the ballot by passed congressional legislation. hehe It’s coming all you retardites for Trump.

  58. “Bye Bye Trump. Congress Democrats allied with RINO’s will get him kicked off the ballot by passed congressional legislation. hehe It’s coming all you retardites for Trump”

    I doubt that this Congress will do anything of the sort.

  59. I have no doubts. It won’t. I’ll, again, offer cash bets, up to $50k. Anyone want to bet?

  61. What COULD happen is that, if the Democrats get a majority in both Houses of Congress (unlikely, but not impossible), is that they will employ the Electoral Count Act to disqualify Trump electors.

  62. Democrats won’t get a majority in both houses. And Biden won’t get kicked off the ballot. Which is OK, because Trump will beat Biden in a landslide too big for the Democrats to cheat their way out of without starting a revolution which Trump would also win easily.

  65. War pigeon Birdbrain will crash into the deep blue Pacific somewhere near Samoa today.

  66. Mr. Richardson,

    I’d call it a trespass and a riot. Which is irrelevant, since Trump wasn’t there and didn’t tell anyone to do that. On the contrary, he told people to protest peacefully and legally.

  68. Birdbrain might pick up Vermont, but that’s a real long shot.

  69. Cross posting here from IPR in case it’s not approved there, and because this thread is specifically mentioned in that discussion:

    I’m still working on that, and real life keeps getting in the way. In the meantime, regarding Ballot Access News; I stand by my opinion. However, I should qualify it.

    I find conversations with people who offer reasons for their opinions and engage counterarguments to be interesting. I find ad hominem arguments, speculation as to who is posting under which screen name(s), name calling, grandiose pronouncements, failure to engage opposing opinions, unintelligible gibberish, links to unrelated news stories, links to sources without considering arguments about their reliability, rote repetition, and attention deficit cheerleading and sloganeering to be boring.

    I tend to simply scroll past the boring stuff. I find it to be an unfortunate but necessary byproduct of what I enjoy about BAN discussion: seeing my opinions post as soon as I submit them, a reasonable degree of certainty that they won’t be removed afterwards, and reading discussions with a reasonable degree of certainty that comments have not been removed so as to make the discussion disjointed.

    If you simply scroll past the aforementioned nonsense, the BAN thread you bring up is a good case in point. That includes speculation about your meatspace identity. I don’t care the least bit whether you and Mr. Stock are one and the same. Out of idle curiosity, because it kept being brought up, I spent less than a minute to discover your meatspace name, and then promptly forgot it. If it was important to me, I’d choose a venue where there could be no question, such as my neighborhood cafe or bar, the office water cooler, a zoom video conference, etc. I find this type of discussion preferable precisely because I don’t know who I’m talking to, and thus ad hominem arguments can’t distract from the discussion as easily.

    Once the types of comments I mentioned are filtered out by simply scrolling past them, a variety of viewpoints which are backed up by reasoning and the willingness to engage counterarguments are present in that BAN thread and other BAN threads. The “cesspool” impression is formed only thanks to a failure to learn which comments to scroll past and simply ignore.

    YMMV, but I find comments by, to, and about AZ to fit that mold something like 99% of the time, to the point where missing the remaining 1% doesn’t bother me nearly as much as the waste of time that reading the remaining 99% would constitute. The same can generally be said for people who use trolling political slogans or common first names sans last name for their screen name (Jim and, sometimes, Andy being exceptions to that general rule).

    Try reading any BAN thread, including the one you reference, while skipping over those, and see if you can or can’t see what I mean.

  70. CODE WORD —

    PEACEFULLY = ATTACK ???

    SEE ***PEACEFUL*** JAP EMPIRE AMBASSADORS ON 6 DEC 1941 IN DC

    CODE FROM TOKYO TO JAP NAVAL FORCE AT SEA — *** CLIMB MOUNT NITAKA *** = ATTACK HAWAII ON 7 DEC 1941

    CODE FROM TOKYO TO DC AMB — BURN CODE BOOKS

    OPEN TEXT FROM HAWAII — AIR RAID PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NO DRILL. >>> USA IN WW II.

  71. You could try that argument in a court of law. I predict the same degree of success as your previous legal adventures.

  73. Posting at IPR proves you are a retarded communist, even if you rightfully bash AZ.

  77. Time for Birdbrain to drop out. All donations must go to Trump. Only he can save America.

  85. Samoa continues to surprise (go Jason Palmer!), but to correct someone earlier, no GOP vote there tonight.

  86. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders supporters are jilting Beijing Biden to give Birdbrain a birdbrain thin edge in birdbrain Vermont.

  87. “The opinion goes on to criticize a situation in which a presidential candidate is on the ballot in some states but not all of them.”

    This is standard for minor-party candidates. Why should the two wings of the Uniparty be any different?

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