Understanding Trump v. Anderson

A court’s gotta do what a court’s gotta do.

Astronaut John Swigert holds a carbon dioxide scrubber made from parts found aboard the Apollo 13 spacecraft. An explosion in an oxygen tank forced the astronauts to abort their moon landing and find a way to keep their air breathable. Credit: NASA/Corbis via Getty Images

Before the oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson, I argued for a different result. After the oral arguments, I argued that the justices were headed in the wrong direction. When the case came down, I tried to explain why it was wrongly decided. Now, it’s time to explore why the case pretty much had to come out as it did.

The reason is quite simple: Section 3 doesn’t work if its application isn’t obvious. The Court needed a legal basis for putting the provision back in its box until an undisputed insurrection comes along.

Do you remember that part of Apollo 13 when the CO2 scrubber failed and the crew had to make a new one out of whatever they could find on board? I’ll bet SCOTUS does. In this year’s presidential election, Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment broke the mechanism that assures uniform eligibility criteria for presidential candidates. Because the Court values uniform nationwide eligibility rules, it endeavored in Trump v. Anderson to restore it, using only the stuff in a fairly limited legal workshop.

The most useful item at hand was Section 5 of the same Fourteenth Amendment:

5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.