Donald Trump
Ilya Somin | 9.15.2024 8:31 PM
Today's much-discussed New York Times article by Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak includes many details about the inner workings of the Supreme Court's deliberations on several key cases decided this year. For the most part, I think the revelations aren't enormously surprising. Chief Justice John Roberts maneuvered for consensus on some key cases. But, in two important ones involving Trump—Trump v. Anderson (the Section 3 disqualification case) and Trump v. United States (the presidential immunity case) – he ultimately sided with a bloc of four conservative justices when full consensus proved elusive. That is fairly evident from the opinions in the cases themselves.
But the reporting does shed a little light on one issue regarding Trump v. Anderson. In my forthcoming article criticizing that ruling, I argue that the majority ruled that people can only be disqualified from holding office under Section 3 of Fourteenth Amendment pursuant to special congressional legislation under Section 5 of the........