UNBIASED - Special Report: Supreme Court Rules Unanimously in Trump v. Anderson. Here's What You Need to Know.

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

This morning, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Trump v. Anderson finding that state's cannot remove Donald Trump from state ballots. A few weeks ago, the parties presented various arguments to the Court to support their respective sides, but ultimately, it came down to one question: Do States have the power to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment? All nine justices answered this question in the negative, and three justices filed concurring opinions. Find out why the Court ruled the way it did, why some justices concurred, and much more in this Special Report.Read the decision here.If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news! Watch this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok. All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased. Today is Monday, March 4th. As you have probably noticed, whether you're listening audio or watching on video, this is an atypical episode. Not only is it a Monday, I usually only release on Tuesdays and Fridays, but I am not in my normal setting. I am using a lavalier mic. I'm out of town. I'm in a hotel room. I'm not wearing my black turtleneck I wear in every episode. I have on a nice pink dress today. So it's definitely an unusual episode, but the reason I am on here, as I'm sure you could

have guessed, is, you know, despite being out of town, the Supreme Court doesn't stop and they released their decision today in Trump versus Anderson, which is obviously that case that deals with Trump's eligibility on state ballots and whether states have the power to enforce what's called the disqualification clause of the Constitution. So this is what that episode is all about. This is what I like to call a special report where I focus on one topic throughout the duration of the episode. Now at the outset, I just want to say the Supreme Court decision was a unanimous one. All justices ruled in favor of Trump. And so in this special and raw report, I am going to briefly discuss the background of the case, though not much because I

did do a couple of episodes in depth about this case, but I'll mostly be explaining the ruling. So if you do want an in-depth sort of discussion, go ahead and listen to my February 9th episode. I talk about the oral arguments and how each side sort of argued this case. Now I do have my computer in front of me because how I did this is I essentially read the decision earlier this morning. I took down all of my notes, everything that I wanted to say about it, and so I'm really just going to be reading from my notes, if you will. So that's how this episode is going to work. Let's jump right into it. Trump versus Anderson is a case that Donald Trump took to the Supreme Court after the Colorado Supreme Court barred him from appearing on the state's primary ballot. Now the reason the Colorado Supreme Court barred him is because of what's

called the Disqualification Clause or Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. So what that clause says specifically in short is that no person shall hold any office under the United States who previously took an oath as an officer of the United States to support the Constitution and later engaged in insurrection against it. So basically what the Colorado Supreme Court said is that based on the text of the 14th Amendment, Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021. He had previously taken an oath as an officer of the United States when he was sworn in as president, and therefore he violated this clause and he was barred from holding office again. So they barred him from the state ballot. Now, other states have rendered decisions on this

same issue. Some states have barred him. Most states have not. Some states have put their decisions or put their cases on hold pending this review from the Supreme Court. So the Colorado Supreme Court, having found that Trump engaged in this insurrection and could not be on the state ballot, Donald Trump took it to the Supreme Court. The question at the Supreme Court was, and what it came down to, was whether states can enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Do they have that power? So in oral arguments, each side presented their various arguments as to why they should prevail, obviously, but it ultimately came down to one question. It wasn't a question of whether the

president is an officer under the, under the United States as, as the, as both sides argued in oral arguments, it didn't come down to the question of whether Trump engaged in an insurrection. And it didn't come down to a question of whether Trump's due process rights were violated by not having been convicted of an insurrection and simply just having gone through this trial in the Colorado state courts. So none of those three questions were the basis of the Supreme Court's decision. Again, the only question the Supreme Court decided to answer was whether a state can enforce Section 3, and the court said no. Now, the court did take it one step further, which is why Justices Jackson, Kagan, Barrett, and Sotomayor

concurred with the majority opinion, but we'll get into that towards the end of this episode. One thing I do want to say before we get into the ruling is that I was not surprised by this decision. If you listened to the February 9th episode, you'll hear me say that I thought this case was going to go in Trump's favor, and I even said I don't think it's going to be as close of a decision as some people might think it is. And it wasn't. It was a unanimous decision. It was pretty clear during oral arguments which way the court was leaning. But nonetheless, ultimately what the court said is this. With the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, the federal government expanded their own power at the expense of state autonomy, meaning that the federal government

enhanced their own power and decreased the power of the states. So what the court says is it doesn't make sense for us to interpret a section of the 14th Amendment, you know, in a way that gives states some power that isn't explicitly set forth in the amendment. For example, what the court says is section one of the 14th Amendment bars the states from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Similarly, they cite to Section 5, which gives Congress the power to enforce these provisions through appropriate legislation. So Section 3, they say, should be treated no different. They say Section 3 was designed to prevent former Confederates from returning to federal office. The court said section three works by

imposing on certain individuals, a preventative and severe penalty disqualification from holding office, but to do so, there must be some sort of determination. And the court said section five of the 14th amendment tells us how those determinations are to be made. And it's through appropriate legislation from Congress. So it's undisputed that Section 3 is to be enforced by Congress through Section 5. But then the court came to the important question in this entire case, which is, okay, so Congress has the power, we know this, but do states have the power to enforce Section 3 in addition to Congress? And this is what the court said. Quote,

We conclude that states may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But states have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the presidency. End quote. They say, quote, In our federal system, the national government possesses only limited powers. The states and the people retain the rest. Among those retained powers is the power of a state to order the processes of its own governance. In particular, the states enjoy sovereign power to prescribe the qualifications of their own officers and the manner of their elections. Such power over governance, however,

does not extend to federal officeholders and candidates. Because federal officers owe their existence and functions to the united voice of the whole, not a portion of the people, powers over their election and qualifications must be specifically delegated to rather than reserved by the states, end quote. And this was unanimous. All nine justices on the bench are in agreement that it is not up to the states to determine who can run for federal office or remove anyone from federal office. The court then addresses some of Anderson's arguments. So Anderson agreed that states can't remove federal office holders. But what Anderson argued in part is that states can enforce Section 3 against candidates for offices, so those not yet elected. And the court disagreed with this. And what the court explained is that the text of the 14th

Amendment does not affirmatively delegate such a power to the states. And as the court said before, because federal officers owe their existence to the whole nation, powers over the elections and qualifications of these federal officials must be specifically delegated to the states. The court then says this logic can't come as a surprise because the 14th Amendment specifically limited state power, yet granted new power to Congress to enforce the provisions of the 14th Amendment. The court says, quote, it would be incongruous to read this particular amendment as granting the states the power, silently no less, to disqualify a candidate for federal office, end quote.

And this is actually an idea that Chief Justice Roberts brought up in oral arguments. What he said to Anderson's attorney back when oral arguments happened is he said, if we look at the 14th Amendment from 30,000 feet up, the broad purpose of it was to restrict the power of the states and augment the power of Congress. So why would the argument be under Section 3 that the states have the power to remove someone, especially a federal official, from their state ballot? So that was kind of foreseen or foreshadowed is the word I'm looking for during oral arguments. And Justice Kagan and Justice Barrett also agreed that this feels like something that's a federal call and not a state call. Now on top of this, the justices made mention that Anderson's side was unable to point to any tradition of state enforcement of Section 3

against federal officeholders or candidates following the ratification of the 14th Amendment. At oral arguments, Anderson did point to some instances where states barred state candidates from their ballot, but no federal candidates. So the court said, quote, such a lack of historical precedent is generally a telling indication of a severe constitutional problem with the asserted power, end quote. And the last sort of unanimous point that the court made before we get into enforcement of Section 3 and why certain justices concurred was that state enforcement of Section 3 and why certain justices concurred was that state enforcement of Section 3 with respect to the presidency would create a lot

of problems. So the court noted that state-by-state resolution of the question whether Section 3 bars a particular candidate for president from serving in the office of president would be quite unlikely to yield a uniform answer consistent with the basic principle that the president represents all voters in the nation. Also, the court says the enforcement among states would differ. So some states might require a criminal conviction of insurrection, whereas other states like Colorado may simply just require a civil trial. So how do you have a uniform way to enforce this section? The court says, quote, the patchwork that would likely result from state enforcement would sever the direct link that the framers found so critical between the national government and the people of

the United States as a whole. Nothing in the Constitution requires that we endure such chaos." And then finally, they get into this issue of enforcement of Section 3 from Congress, which is what led to the concurring opinions from some of the justices. So something to note here is that a decision from the court can still be unanimous without all justices agreeing to every single aspect or component of a case, right? So as long as the justices agree to, as to the main answer that's presented to the court, the decision will be unanimous. But some justices may take issue with how a court reached that decision, right? The pathway that they got to that answer. Or maybe they disagree with a smaller aspect of the case that doesn't change the overall

decision. And in that case, justices can opt to write a concurrence to kind of get out what they want to say. So in this case, the majority opinion stated that Section 5 of the 14th Amendment limits congressional legislation enforcing Section 3 because Section 5 is strictly remedial. What the court said is that, quote, to comply with that limitation, Congress must tailor its legislative scheme to remedying or preventing the specific conduct the relevant provision prohibits. Section 3, unlike other provisions of the 14th Amendment,

prescribes conduct of individuals. It bars persons from holding office after taking a qualifying oath and then engaging in insurrection or rebellion. Nothing more. Any congressional legislation enforcing Section 3 must reflect congruence and proportionality between preventing or remedying that conduct and the means adopted to that end, end quote. So the reason that these justices filed a concurrence was because they didn't agree with extending this decision beyond where it had to go. So what Justice Barrett said is this. She said, I join parts one and two B of the court's opinion.

I agree states lack the power to enforce section three against presidential candidates. That principle is sufficient to resolve this case, and I would decide no more than that. This suit was brought by Colorado voters under state law in state court. It does not require us to address the complicated question whether federal legislation is the exclusive vehicle through which section three can be enforced. The majority's choice of a different path leaves the remaining justices with a choice of how to respond. In my judgment, this is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency. The court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the court should turn the national temperature down, not up.

For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity. All nine justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home. End quote. Then Justices Kagan, Jackson, and Sotomayor wrote a separate concurrence, all three of them together. And here's what they said in part. This is much longer, so I'll just read you sort of the beginning section that explains what they

had to say fairly briefly. They say, if it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, then it is not necessary not to decide more, citing Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. That fundamental principle of judicial restraint is practically as old as our republic. Today, the courts depart from that vital principle, deciding not just this case, but challenges that might arise in the future. In this case, the court must decide whether Colorado may keep a presidential candidate off the ballot on the ground that he is an oath-breaking insurrectionist and thus disqualified from holding federal office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Allowing Colorado to do so would, we agree, create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork

at odds with our nation's federalism principles. That is enough to resolve this case. Yet the majority goes further. Even though, quote, all nine members of the court, end quote, agree that this independent and sufficient rationale resolves this case, five justices go on. They decide novel constitutional questions to insulate this court and petitioner from future controversy. Although only an individual state's action is at issue here, the majority opines on which federal actors can enforce Section 3 and how they must do so.

The majority announces that a disqualification for insurrection can occur only when Congress enacts a particular kind of legislation pursuant to Section 5 of the 14th Amendment. In doing so, the majority shuts the door on other potential means of federal enforcement. We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment. So the majority's opinion did briefly address these concurrences. The majority wrote, quote, So far as we can tell, they object only to our taking into account the distinctive way Section 3 works and the fact that Section 5 vests in Congress the power to enforce it. These are not the only reasons the states lack power to enforce this particular constitutional provision with respect to federal offices, but they are important ones and it is the combination

of all reasons set forth in this opinion, not as some of our colleagues would have it, just one particular rationale that resolves this case. In our view, each of these reasons is necessary to provide a complete explanation for the judgment the court unanimously reaches." End quote. That is the decision in a nutshell. Now, if you do want to read the decision, it is linked on my website jordanismylawyer.com in this episode description. Just, you know, scroll down all the way to the bottom. That's where I keep my sources. Now, what you need to know going forward is what this means is that Trump can remain on the ballot in all states. No state can remove him. In the future, if Congress wants to enforce Section 3 against a federal candidate, they'll have to do so with

the particular type of legislation that the Supreme Court laid out. So that's the takeaway here. That is how I would sum up this case in just a couple of sentences. But thank you so much for being here for this raw last minute special report. Stay tuned for tomorrow because Tuesdays and Fridays obviously are my typical release days, but because I am out of town, I'm re-releasing a very relevant and one of my favorite episodes of all time. It's everything you need to know about the Supreme Court. You'll hear tomorrow. I cover all the bases. It's something that I think all Americans should be aware of, something I'm super passionate about. So stay tuned for that. That'll be live tomorrow morning,

6 a.m. Tuesday morning, that is. Enjoy that, and I will be back with a news update on Friday.