Jeffrey Toobin said Monday’s unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibiting Colorado from removing Donald Trump’s name from the state’s presidential ballot showed the liberal justices were “pissed off” at their conservative counterparts via Mediaite.
The Colorado Supreme Court had previously banned Trump from appearing on ballots in the state, but a court has now invalidated that decision. The reason given for the decision is that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars insurrectionists from holding federal office.
Trump had made false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him and attempted to overturn the results. When his efforts failed, a group of supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and delayed certification of the election for several hours.
“Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse,” the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion stated.
Though the court’s three liberal justices and Amy Coney Barrett agreed in a concurrence, they said the conservatives went beyond the scope of the case.
“…[T]he majority goes further,” the concurring justices wrote. “Even though ‘[a]ll nine Members of the Court’ agree that this independent and sufficient rationale resolves this case, five Justices go on. They decide novel constitutional questions to insulate this Court and petitioner from future controversy.”
Appearing on Monday’s AC360 on CNN, Toobin offered this observation:
There was a paradox about today. The Supreme Court, they were unanimous, which is in controversial cases unusual in this Supreme Court. However, there were some pissed off justices there. You could just tell from the paper the opinions were written on. The three [liberal] justices didn’t dissent, the three liberals. But they really went after the five for saying, for giving a roadmap for how this law should be applied instead of just saying, “Look what Colorado did was wrong. That’s all we should have done.”
The most interesting opinion was from Amy Coney Barrett, who wrote an opinion agreeing with the three liberals, but saying, “Can everyone please chill out?” Saying, “Can we just like, we have a controversial election coming up. Let’s not engage in stridency,” as she said it.
