Excerpt:
It’s extremely difficult to square this ruling with the text of Section 3 [of the Fourteenth Amendment]. The language is clearly mandatory. The first words are “No person shall be” a member of Congress or a state or federal officer if that person has engaged in insurrection or rebellion or provided aid or comfort to the enemies of the Constitution. The Section then says, “But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.”
In other words, the Constitution imposes the disability, and only a supermajority of Congress can remove it. But under the Supreme Court’s reasoning, the meaning is inverted: The Constitution merely allows Congress to impose the disability, and if Congress chooses not to enact legislation enforcing the section, then the disability does not exist. The Supreme Court has effectively replaced a very high bar for allowing insurrectionists into federal office — a supermajority vote by Congress — with the lowest bar imaginable: congressional inaction.
This is a fairly easy read for the legal layperson, and the best general overview I’ve seen yet that sets forth the various legal and constitutional factors involved in today’s decision, including the concurring dissent by Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson.
“Insane” is the perfect word. There is no possible way these justices had no idea what the framers meant and didn’t mean, what the Tenth Amendment reservation of powers to the states means, or what the Fourteenth Amendment is about . . . and if they didn’t know (cough John Roberts cough) it’s because they didn’t want to know, or were paid enough (cough Clarence Thomas cough) to temporarily feign ignorance.
I said this in another comment elsewhere, but the dissenting concurrence from the three liberal judges is so strong, and the effort to appear as a “unified front” so blatant, I really got the impression there was some strong-arming behind the scenes to get to this semblance of unanimity when the details are anything but. This was confirmed for me later when I read in The Guardian that this ruling was issued “per curiam” which is not default for a unanimous SCOTUS decision, but must be specifically designated by the court.
These justices knowingly chose to turn part of the Constitution upside down, maybe in a misguided sense thinking they’re preventing civil chaos but instead just punting it down the line and making it even worse. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that this is the new reality.