“[T]he dissents showed one thing clearly: The Colorado majority was right.”
That’s George Conway’s conclusion after deconstructing the dissents in the Colorado Supreme Court ruling (4-3) that prohibits Trump from appearing on the ballot.
WIL:
(1) the #SCOTUS has no authority over state law (and this is state law)
(2) if this part of the 14th Amendment were to require Congress to act, so would Constitutional requirements for due process and equal protection.
@kegill Well it's more complicated for a few reasons. This is actually a rather complicated situation.
Federal laws impact this decision in a few different ways, and that would give SCOTUS some level of authority over the state, but it would be a really exceptional thing for the court to use those rarely used authorities. But then this is an exceptional case.
Aside from that, another complication is that the state applied federal law, not just state law, in the case, giving SCOTUS a second pathway for becoming involved.
It's pretty much a mess at this point.
@kegill no no but I've spent decades vacuuming up what they say and watching how the courts act.
The state court ruling was posted a couple of days ago so we can read exactly what its ruling said.
Why should I treat your opinion with greater credibility than Conway? Because that’s who you are arguing with.
Also, I know it’s complicated. I also know that the CO court relied on a decision written by Gorsuch before he was elevated to the SCOTUS.
@kegill you shouldn't. But if you're interested in this there are plenty of resources to back up what I'm saying, and I'm sure you yourself know of some examples of what I'm talking about.
And like I said, I would encourage everyone who's interested to go read the actual state ruling since it talks about the federal laws involved AND the state court even put its own ruling on hold to give time for the appeal to the Supreme Court.
If it was true that SCOTUS had no authority there then the state court wouldn't have gone out of its way to recognize that authority.
Anyway, also keep in mind the most famous example of bush v Gore where the Supreme Court reviewed exactly the same sort of state business.
I suspect you misunderstood what Conway was saying though.
I’m pretty sure you misread what I typed.
*Conway* said he had changed his mind about the decision after reading the weak dissents.
No where did I state that the SCOTUS has no right to interpret Constitutional law.
I said that I learned (was reminded, really) that the SCOTUS has no oversight of state law.
Nothing else in that Constitutional Amendment needs explicit Congressional action, so then logically neither does this section.
Also, I have given you a LOT more attention than I normally do to anonymous accounts that read like mansplaining.
@kegill no I heard it, and like I pointed out we know that SCOTUS absolutely has oversight of the state law since firstly the state court explicitly recognized that right and secondly we can name off the top of our head a famous case where that very thing happened.
You don't have to trust me. I'm sure you've heard of Bush v Gore, so you can trust your own memory for that counter example.
@volkris
Are you a constitutional lawyer?