Posted on 03/05/2024 5:53:40 AM PST by Brilliant
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a purportedly unanimous decision Monday finding states cannot bar federal candidates from appearing on ballots, but a closer look at the justices' writings — and the opinion's metadata — reveals a sharp divide that court watchers say was papered over in an effort to preserve the court's institutional legitimacy.
The caption on Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson's six-page concurrence claiming the court went too far in its per curiam opinion looks normal to the naked eye. But when the top line listing the participating justices is selected with a triple-click, copied and pasted into a Word document, the opinion's metadata shows it was once labeled a partial dissent.
A search for "dissent" in the opinion also shows the line as the second of three hits.
While that discovery may not surprise those who've read the liberal trio's sharply worded concurrence, which Melissa Murray, a New York University School of Law professor, described as having "big D — dissent — energy," it provides a unique window into the makings of a Supreme Court opinion, and a court trying to persevere despite record-low approval ratings.
"I'm sure there was a desire to speak with one voice," Murray said. "But if you kick the tires on it, this is a Potemkin village of unanimity. There's some real tension on this court about this opinion."...
(Excerpt) Read more at law360.com ...
As an aside, the article states that it was likely Roberts who wrote the per curiam opinion.
Does Roberts still publicly hold that there are no 0bama judges?
Pretty difficult to get nine people to agree 100% on a complex concept. Even if one only agrees 99%, the Democrats would jump on that one percent as descent!
I personally agree more with the concurring opinion. The Constitution says that Congress has the power to remove the impediment, but it doesn’t say anything about Congress having a role in imposing the impediment. The disqualification seems to be automatic, if it applies. The real reason it doesn’t apply is that Jan. 6 was not an insurrection. But that is the politically sensitive issue that the Court was trying to avoid, so they went with this other rationale instead, and punted to Congress.
I think that was a cop out. Congress already has the power of impeachment, and legislators can be indicted for insurrection and then removed by Congress. This particular provision would be surplusage, if only Congress could enforce it. I think they should have ruled that it was a grant of power to the Courts. But if they had, then they would have had to deal with the political question that they were trying to avoid.
“ Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson”
Not one fit for the job. All affirmative action hires. All democrats.
The leftists and Amy Commie Barrett were pretty much in agreement.
Apparently disagreement among the justices as to which flavor of Blizzard to get.
Yes - exactly what came to mind when I saw the headline.
All 9 justices agree that Colorado can not unilaterally remove Trump from the ballot. All 9 agreed with the part of the writing that described various procedures that might be used to determine whether someone/anyone was guilty of insurrection, and all 9 agreed with the subtle snub that in Colorado that no procedure for making this determination was used at all. All 9 agree that a patchwork of different states making different determinations for a nationwide office is unconstitutional.
It is obvious from the wording that at least 3 and maybe 4 justices do think Trump is an insurrectionist. The three leftists also stridently disagree with the majority that Congress needs to affirmatively act to create a process for barring someone from the ballot. So they clearly want to leave the door open to, for example, Democrats refusing to ratify the result, or the Federal Elections Commission intervening.
Yes. I think the Court should have closed the door, but not in they way they did. What they should have done is ruled that as a matter of law, what happened on Jan. 6 was not an insurrection. The Civil War was an insurrection. This was a protest where some of the participants broke laws, but none of them rose to the level of an insurrection. Of course, they did not want to make that determination for political reasons.
The reason I don’t like the Court’s rationale is what if the next President actually DOES participate in an insurrection? Then I think the Court would want to be able to weigh in. The way this came out, they’d have to refer it to Congress. But Congress already has the power of impeachment, so it really doesn’t add anything.
Trump was impeached twice, never Convicted by the Senate. Same as someone charged with murder but never convicted by the State, but they put him the electric chair and pull the switch! Cart before the horse issue. Love the Libs, never let words, law, logic, math, science get in their way. Use them if it help, disregard when they don’t help….
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