The U.S .Supreme Court ruled unanimously (9-0) that states cannot remove former President Donald Trump from voting ballots, however, as the Mueller, She Wrote account noted on X today: “SCOTUS did not rule that trump didn’t engage in insurrection.”
SCOTUS did not rule that trump didn’t engage in insurrection.
— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) March 4, 2024
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) reacted to the SCOTUS ruling on CNN and said: “The Supreme Court punted and said it’s up to Congress to act.” [The ruling states: “Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.”]
Raskin, a Harvard-trained lawyer and Constitutional law professor, disagreed with the Court’s interpretation that Congress needs to enforce Section 3 of the 14th amendment, noting that the rest of the 14th amendment is “self-executing.”
But whatever his disagreements, Raskin concedes that as a legislator the decision gives Democrats an opportunity: since the SCOTUS decision throws this to Congress, Raskin vowed to move on it there.
Raskin told Dana Bash on CNN: “and so I’m working with a number of my colleagues” including fellow Democrats Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL) and Eric Swalwell (CA) to “revive legislation we had to set up a process by which we could determine that someone who committed insurrection is disqualified by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.”
Following the Supreme Court’s decision, Congressional Democrats wasted no time getting to work on legislation to remove Trump from the ballot.
Rep. Jamie Raskin: “The Supreme Court punted and said it’s up to Congress to act, and so I’m working with a number of my colleagues…to… pic.twitter.com/90hnXcg9qK
— Julia (@Jules31415) March 4, 2024
Raskin, the Ranking Member of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, added, “and the House of Representatives have already impeached Donald Trump for participating in insurrection by inciting it.”
Raskin then said, in the manner of provocateur: “The question is whether Speaker Mike Johnson would allow us to bring this to the floor.” (Raskin knows the chances of that roughly resemble those of the proverbial snowball in hell.)
That snowball melting sounds like this: Johnson described the Colorado Supreme Court decision to remove Trump from its ballots as “a purely partisan attack against the frontrunner for the Republican presidential primary,” and suggested “states engaging in the same activist, undemocratic behaviors should take notice and leave it to the American people to decide who will be president.”