A Dissent in the Trump 14th Amendment Case?

Author

Robert W. Walker

Published

March 4, 2024

obertwwalker.github.io

Last updated: 2024-03-04 21:25:11.046155

Timezone: America/Los_Angeles

The Trump Case

Colorado’s Secretary of State deemed Donald J. Trump ineligible for the ballot in Colorado as a result of the insurrection on January 6. The ultimate decision was described as unanimous though there may be something else going on. Rumors are circulating that there was some dissent though it did not make it into the final version. To have a look, I grabbed the opinion as issued. You can find it here.

Some packages and setup

First, I will need three packages. stringr for string detection, pdftools for importing the pdf and the tidyverse by habit.

How’s that done? 
library(tidyverse)
library(pdftools)
library(stringr)

Import the file and look for dissent

Let’s import the file and then just see if the stem “dissent” exists.

How’s that done? 
Opinion <- pdf_data("./data/23-719_19m2.pdf")
table(str_detect(unlist(Opinion), "dissent"))

FALSE  TRUE 
38097     3

Three times. Now let’s find them.

How’s that done? 
str_locate_all(Opinion, "dissent")
[[1]]
     start end

[[2]]
     start end

[[3]]
     start   end
[1,] 10548 10554

[[4]]
     start end

[[5]]
     start end

[[6]]
     start end

[[7]]
     start end

[[8]]
     start end

[[9]]
     start end

[[10]]
     start end

[[11]]
     start end

[[12]]
     start end

[[13]]
     start end

[[14]]
     start end

[[15]]
     start  end
[1,]  7254 7260

[[16]]
     start end

[[17]]
     start end

[[18]]
     start end

[[19]]
     start end

[[20]]
     start  end
[1,]  7367 7373

So they appear in the third, fifteenth, and twentieth sections. Three is still the decision and twenty is the last item.

Section 15

So let’s start with the 15th section and render the complete text that it contains.

How’s that done? 
cat(Opinion[[15]][["text"]], sep=" ")

Cite as: 601 U. S. ____ (2024) 1 , J., concurring in part dissenting part S OTOMAYOR S OTOMAYOR , K AGAN , and J ACKSON , JJ., and concurring in in judgment SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 23–719 _________________ DONALD J. TRUMP, PETITIONER v. NORMA ANDERSON, ET AL . ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF COLORADO [March 4, 2024] J USTICE S OTOMAYOR , J USTICE K AGAN , and J USTICE J ACKSON , concurring in the judgment. “If it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, then it is necessary not to decide more.” Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U. S. 215, 348 (2022) (R OBERTS , C. J., concurring in judgment). That fundamen- tal principle of judicial restraint is practically as old as our Republic. This Court is authorized “to say what the law is” only because “[t]hose who apply [a] rule to particular cases . . . must of necessity expound and interpret that rule.” Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 177 (1803) (emphasis added). Today, the Court departs from that vital principle, decid- ing not just this case, but challenges that might arise in the future. In this case, the Court must decide whether Colo- rado may keep a Presidential candidate off the ballot on the ground that he is an oathbreaking insurrectionist and thus disqualified from holding federal office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Allowing Colorado to do so would, we agree, create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles. That is enough to resolve this case. Yet the majority goes further. Even though “[a]ll nine Members of the Court” agree that this independent and sufficient rationale resolves this case,

So apparently, someone was talked into a change. The other two sections reflect citations to dissents in the opinion.

Section 3

How’s that done? 
cat(Opinion[[3]][["text"]], sep=" ")

Cite as: 601 U. S. ____ (2024) 3 Per Curiam States” and the President is not an “officer of the United States” within the meaning of that provision. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 184a–284a. In December, the Colorado Supreme Court reversed in part and affirmed in part by a 4 to 3 vote. Reversing the District Court’s operative holding, the majority concluded that for purposes of Section 3, the Presidency is an office under the United States and the President is an officer of the United States. The court otherwise affirmed, holding (1) that the Colorado Election Code permitted the respond- ents’ challenge based on Section 3; (2) that Congress need not pass implementing legislation for disqualifications un- der Section 3 to attach; (3) that the political question doc- trine did not preclude judicial review of former President Trump’s eligibility; (4) that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in admitting into evidence portions of a con- gressional Report on the events of January 6; (5) that the District Court did not err in concluding that those events constituted an “insurrection” and that former President Trump “engaged in” that insurrection; and (6) that former President Trump’s speech to the crowd that breached the Capitol on January 6 was not protected by the First Amend- ment. See id., at 1a–114a. The Colorado Supreme Court accordingly ordered Secre- tary Griswold not to “list President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot” or “count any write-in votes cast for him.” Id., at 114a. Chief Justice Boatright and Justices Samour and Berkenkotter each filed dissent- ing opinions. Id., at 115a–124a, 125a–161a, 162a–183a. Under the terms of the opinion of the Colorado Supreme Court, its ruling was automatically stayed pending this Court’s review. See id., at 114a. We granted former Presi- dent Trump’s petition for certiorari, which raised a single question: “Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential pri- mary ballot?” See 601 U. S. ___ (2024). Concluding that it

Section 20

How’s that done? 
cat(Opinion[[20]][["text"]], sep=" ")

6 TRUMP v. ANDERSON OTOMAYOR , , K K AGAN AGAN , , and J ACKSON , JJ., , JJ., concurring in the S OTOMAYOR S J ACKSON concurring in judgment judgment Bush v. Gore, 531 U. S. 98, 158 (2000) (Breyer, J., dissent- ing). The Court today needed to resolve only a single ques- tion: whether an individual State may keep a Presidential candidate found to have engaged in insurrection off its bal- lot. The majority resolves much more than the case before us. Although federal enforcement of Section 3 is in no way at issue, the majority announces novel rules for how that enforcement must operate. It reaches out to decide Section 3 questions not before us, and to foreclose future efforts to disqualify a Presidential candidate under that provision. In a sensitive case crying out for judicial restraint, it abandons that course. Section 3 serves an important, though rarely needed, role in our democracy. The American people have the power to vote for and elect candidates for national office, and that is a great and glorious thing. The men who drafted and rati- fied the Fourteenth Amendment, however, had witnessed an “insurrection [and] rebellion” to defend slavery. §3. They wanted to ensure that those who had participated in that insurrection, and in possible future insurrections, could not return to prominent roles. Today, the majority goes beyond the necessities of this case to limit how Section 3 can bar an oathbreaking insurrectionist from becoming President. Although we agree that Colorado cannot enforce Section 3, we protest the majority’s effort to use this case to define the limits of federal enforcement of that provision. Because we would decide only the issue before us, we concur only in the judgment.

References

How’s that done? 
knitr::write_bib(names(sessionInfo()$otherPkgs), file="bibliography.bib")

References

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