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* Latest * Magazine * Current Issue * Archives * Subscribe * Crossword * Video * Podcasts * All Shows * The Reason Roundtable * The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie * The Soho Forum Debates * Just Asking Questions * The Best of Reason Magazine * Why We Can't Have Nice Things * Volokh * Newsletters * Donate * Donate Online * Donate Crypto * Ways To Give To Reason Foundation * Torchbearer Society * Planned Giving * Subscribe * Reason Plus Subscription * Print Subscription Search for: LOGIN FORM Username(Required) Password(Required) Remember Me Login Create new account Forgot password THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent About The Volokh Conspiracy * Editorial Independence * Who we are * Books * Volokh Daily Email * Archives * DMCA * RSS Originalism MICHAEL RAPPAPORT ON "THE ORIGINALIST DISASTER" OF THE SUPREME COURT'S RULING IN TRUMP V. COLORADO A LEADING ORIGINALIST LEGAL SCHOLAR EXPLAINS WHAT THE COURT GOT WRONG. Ilya Somin | 3.5.2024 11:59 PM The Supreme Court. (Joe Ravi/Wikimedia/CC-BY-SA 3.0) Michael Rappaport is one of the nation's most prominent originalist legal scholars, and author of such important works as Originalism and the Good Constitution (coauthored with John McGinnis). For those who care, he's also considerably to the right of me politically. In a recent post at the Originalism Blog, he skewers the Supreme Court's recent ruling in Trump v. Anderson, the Section 3 disqualification case: > The Supreme Court has decided by a 9-0 vote that former President Donald Trump > cannot be kept off the ballot. In my view, the reasoning in the opinion is a > disaster…. While I agree with the Court that Trump cannot be disqualified, it > is not because of the nonoriginalist, made-up argument in the majority and > concurring opinions. It is because section 3 applies to those who engage in > an insurrection, not those who aid and assist a riot. > > In my view, section 3 is self-enforcing. This follows pretty clearly from the > constitutional text. Section 3 prohibits an oath-breaking insurrectionist > from serving in certain offices. State officials are required by oath to > respect this constitutional provision. That Congress is specifically given > the authority to eliminate the bar by a two-thirds vote makes this even > clearer. The section simply cannot be read as saying that only Congress or > the federal government can enforce it. > > The opinion relies upon spurious, non-textual reasoning. It says that the > 14th Amendment restricts state autonomy and therefore it is unlikely that the > state was allowed to enforce it against federal candidates. But the 14th > Amendment restricts state autonomy only as to the rules it sets. For example, > it prohibits states from violating the equal protection of the laws. But it > does not prohibit the state from enforcing the equal protection clause. On > the contrary, the state can pass a law that enforces the equal protection > clause….. > > The Supreme Court opinion says that nothing in the Constitution delegates to > the states the power to disqualify federal candidates. But this is obviously > mistaken under the original meaning. The Constitution says that "each State > shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number > of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to > which the State may be entitled in the Congress." This provision allocates to > the states the power how to run their presidential elections. State > legislatures could decide not to hold elections at all but could assign their > electoral votes to the candidate of their choosing. States have broad > authority to structure their presidential elections. While this authority > might be subject to other constitutional limitations, the Court does not point > to any such limitation here. > > Some might question whether the Constitution could really have allowed > individual states to disqualify people for insurrections, given how difficult > it might be to define this term. But the Constitution did not leave this > issue unaddressed. Congress has the power, under section 5 of the 14th > Amendment, to preempt state disqualification by creating a federal procedure > for such disqualifications. Even without such federal legislation, the > Supreme Court has the authority to hear challenges to the state > determinations, as it did in this case (although it is possible that such > challenges might not lead to complete national uniformity as to section 3 > questions….). > > It is true that presidential elections have come to be viewed as national > elections. This view has led many people to view the electoral college as > inconsistent with such national elections and to argue for a national popular > vote method instead. But that is not the system that the Constitution > establishes. Instead, the Constitution grants significant authority to states > over presidential elections. That is the original meaning. I think Mike is right here on virtually all counts. I offered some similar criticisms of the Court's ruling here. As Mike suggests, even if the Court had ruled against Trump on the self-execution issue, he could have potentially avoided disqualification on one of several other grounds, one of which is the argument that the January 6 attack was not an "insurrection," but merely some other kind of violence. In my view, the the January 6 attack on the Capitol was pretty obviously an insurrection (see also here and here). The argument on the other side is so weak that Trump's lawyer Jonathan Mitchell chose not to advance it in his brief before the Supreme Court. Powered By 10 Sec Passengers describe turbulence during Doha to Dublin flight that caused injuries Next Stay Mitchell did make the much stronger argument that Trump's involvement in the attack wasn't great enough to qualify as "engaging" in insurrection. I think that was the best argument on Trump's side of the case, though I also think the Colorado Supreme Court offered compelling reasons to reject it. Be that as it may, Michael Rappaport is right about the federal Supreme Court's reliance on the claim that Section 3 isn't self-executing with respect to candidates for federal office. It is, as he puts it, "an unprincipled, pragmatic resolution" of the case, one that cannot be justified on originalist grounds. I am less convinced he is right to suggest this outcome occurred because the Court's "self-interest was severely implicated." Perhaps the justices were driven by genuine, even if overblown, fears that letting states adjudicate Section 3 issues with respect to candidates for federal offices would lead to a chaotic "patchwork" of conflicting rulings. But if so, that's still a triumph of consequentialist "living constitution" reasoning over originalism. To get the Volokh Conspiracy Daily e-mail, please sign up here. Email(Required) Phone This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. Submit Δ NEXT: D.C. Circuit Rejects Conflict Mineral Suit Against Apple and Other Tech Companies Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University, and author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom and Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter. OriginalismDonald Trump14th AmendmentSupreme CourtElection 2024Elections Share on FacebookShare on XShare on RedditShare by emailPrint friendly versionCopy page URL Media Contact & Reprint Requests Show Comments (288) LATEST IN HAWAII, PERMISSION TO USE MEDICAL MARIJUANA PRECLUDES PERMISSION TO OWN A GUN Jacob Sullum | 5.27.2024 3:35 PM K-12 SCHOOLS CRIPPLED BY COVID CASH Aaron Garth Smith | 5.27.2024 8:00 AM AUSTRALIANS ABANDON PHYSICAL CASH AND THE FREEDOM IT PROTECTS J.D. Tuccille | 5.27.2024 7:00 AM ARCHIVES: JUNE 2024 Reason Staff | From the June 2024 issue 6 AI LIFE HACKS YOU CAN USE RIGHT NOW Varad Raigaonkar | From the June 2024 issue RECOMMENDED SCOTUS TROUBLED BY CLAIM THAT STATES CAN DISQUALIFY TRUMP FROM BALLOT AS INSURRECTIONIST SCOTUS RULES UNANIMOUSLY THAT STATES MAY NOT DISQUALIFY TRUMP AS INSURRECTIONIST 7 REASONS TRUMP'S LAWYERS SAY HE IS NOT DISQUALIFIED FROM RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT NEW LAWFARE ARTICLE ON "WHAT THE SUPREME COURT GOT WRONG IN THE TRUMP SECTION 3 CASE" WHO DECIDES WHETHER TRUMP CAN RUN, AND WHAT SORT OF EVIDENCE SUFFICES? * About * Browse Topics * Events * Staff * Jobs * Donate * Advertise * Subscribe * Contact * Media * Shop * Amazon Reason Facebook@reason on XReason InstagramReason TikTokReason YoutubeApple PodcastsReason on FlipboardReason RSS © 2024 Reason Foundation | Accessibility | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Notifications