Sweeping Section Three under the Rug: A Comment on Trump v. Anderson

In Trump v. Anderson, the Supreme Court was confronted with the explosive question of whether former President Donald Trump was constitutionally disqualified from future office by Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Colorado Supreme Court had found that he was and consequently held him ineligible for the state’s primary ballot as a matter of state election law. Rarely have the stakes of a constitutional issue been so great. The institutional, political, and personal pressures on the justices presented by Trump v. Anderson were enormous, requiring the justices to rise to the demands of the occasion in a way perhaps unrivaled in the Court’s history.<br><br>They did not do so. Unlike some “great cases” of American history, where the press of time and circumstances had the effect of concentrating the judicial mind to produce important landmark constitutional decisions, the Court in Trump v. Anderson produced a flimsy decision in a high-stakes, high-profile, high-intensity case of great importance. Instead of confronting the issues squarely, the Court tried to sweep Section Three under the rug. The Court decided little, in the end, and what it did decide was still flagrantly wrong.<br><br>The Court held that states may not enforce Section Three’s disqualifications from office in the context of state election law concerning elections to federal office. That holding is legally indefensible. It fundamentally inverts the Constitution’s text, structure, and history concerning the power of states in presidential elections.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>Yet equally significant is what the Court did not decide. It did not reject the Colorado Supreme Court’s conclusion that Trump is disqualified from future office, under the standards of Section Three. It did not hold that the events culminating in the January 6 attack on the capitol fell short of the constitutional standard for an “insurrection.” It did not reject the Colorado Supreme Court’s conclusion that Trump had “engaged in” that insurrection. It did not question the Colorado courts’ factual findings concerning Trump’s conduct and intent.&nbsp;And–perhaps contrary to initial appearances, and contrary to the critique of the justices concurring in the judgment only–the Court did not hold that Section Three is legally inoperative without enforcement legislation by Congress. Nothing in the case contradicts the conclusions we reached in our prior scholarship, The Sweep and Force of Section Three, on any of these points.<br><br>The upshot is that Donald Trump remains constitutionally disqualified from the presidency and may not lawfully serve in that office or any other unless Congress removes the disqualification by two-thirds majorities of both houses. Nothing in&nbsp;Trump v. Anderson&nbsp;changes that legal reality. If Donald Trump was constitutionally ineligible to the presidency on March 3, 2024, the day before the Court’s decision, he remained constitutionally ineligible on March 5, the day after its decision. And he remains ineligible today. A variety of potential avenues to enforce that disqualification remain. Sweeping Section Three under the rug thus may merely have postponed the day of ultimate constitutional reckoning.