Denison Forum
Dr. Jim Denison
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that states lack the power to reject presidential candidates on the grounds that they engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the US. This decision restores former President Donald Trump’s name to the Colorado ballot and ends similar challenges to his candidacy elsewhere.
I am not making a partisan statement by expressing my gratitude that the ruling was 9–0. Given the acrimony surrounding the Court in particular and our politics in general, such unanimity is welcome.
In our system of governance, the Supreme Court is our final legal authority. The Founders envisioned a court free from partisan entanglements, so they invested the justices with unelected, lifetime tenures. However, they knew that the members would be nominated by presidents who espoused and represented political groups and agendas, so they required the nominees to be confirmed by the Senate (US Constitution, Article II, section 2). Such confirmation historically required a sixty-vote supermajority, hopefully ensuring some level of bipartisan support for the candidate, but the threshold was lowered to a simple majority in recent years.
This simple majority confirmed three of President Trump’s nominees, giving the Court a 6–3 conservative majority and incurring significant backlash from Democrats, only 24 percent of whom now view the Supreme Court favorably. For their part, many Republicans view the numerous court cases against Mr. Trump as “lawfare” animosity directed against him.
