Will the Supreme Court Take Trump Ballot Ban Case?
Summary
Transcript
It may go to conference tomorrow. That’s going to be totally up to the court. They do have a conference tomorrow. So Logan, it could well be at that conference, but people probably don’t even know what a conference is. Yeah, I think there’s a lot of confusion. Even as I said it, I realized that, yeah, what does it mean? A conference is where they actually decide if they’re going to hear the case and they go around in the order of the youngest member of the court as far as not age, but tenure on the court goes first, saying, I want to hear it, I don’t want to hear it, and they talk about it.
So that’s where they decide, or can decide whether they want to hear the case. I think the case will be, well, I know it will be available for conference. Whether they reach it at conference is totally up to the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Based on the low that they have, my guess is it does go because I think this thing needs to be handled in an expeditious manner.
The significance of the case in terms of whether somebody is on a ballot or not on a ballot militates in favor of the court actually taking this up at conference and making a substantive decision whether to hear it or not. The idea is this will move very fast. Hopefully, it’s possible we actually get an order tomorrow. We could get an order from the court tomorrow on the status of this.
Now, that order may say we want additional briefing. It may say, you got ten days to do this brief opening brief. This day here’s set for Supreme Court oral argument date. So it can be pretty wide open. But I do think it’s fair to say that we are going to get some substantive response if they decide to take it up in conference. I guess that’s the word I need to emphasize to people.
It may go to conference. Doesn’t mean they take it up because they have a whole list of cases and they’ve got a backlog document. Now, this is a very important case that’s creating election havoc already. I think the court knows they have to jump in. The ballots need to go out this month in many jurisdictions. And it’s also important to keep in mind that military officers are supposed to receive their ballots perhaps two or three weeks in advance.
Right. So there are huge practical problems associated with, let’s say, a leisurely approach to this issue. This issue is the quintessential issue for a democracy, for a republic. Without an expeditious review, this could amount to the denial of the democratic rights of american citizens to participate in a republican form of government. This is complicated. It’s complicated because it’s a multi issue case. It’s a case to first impression, meaning there’s not clear precedent on one side or the other.
It’s constitutional interpretation, in part based on what the founder’s thoughts were. So we go back, Andy, to your specialty. The history of all of this and the ramifications of it are very serious. This is not a leisurely case. No. This is a case of utmost national, indeed global importance because of the United States stature in the world and the right of someone to vote for who they want to, regardless of anything else.
Now that we know the President Trump has filed, can you give us explanation of what’s the difference between what you filed, the ACLJ has filed, and what President Trump’s legal team? Of course, there’s a lot of overlap because the legal issues about whether the president is an officer for the purpose of the constitution. Both petitions address that, whether section three of article of the 14th amendment is what’s called self executing.
In other words, does Congress need to take action to get legislation put forward? There’s overlap there. We raise a First Amendment issue because the Republican Party, uniquely, as the party’s first Amendment rights, have been violated here to nominate the candidates of their choice and to put forward a ballot of candidates, especially Harry, in a primary where there’s going to be multiple Republicans on the ticket. So it’s not just Donald Trump.
So their First Amendment rights have been violated. So while there’s overlap, there’s also distinctions. The court’s going to have to address that in the conference tomorrow. But the First Amendment issue is very serious. The first Amendment operates as a guarantee of the right of freedom of association and the right of freedom of speech with respect to what a political party, a political party, is a quintessential element of a true democracy.
And so the failure, I think, of the Supreme Court or any court to address that issue is very, very unhelpful going forward. And I certainly hope they look at that issue. And that is an issue which we have hit hard, everybody, by the way, both sides petitioners and respondents, everybody agrees the case needs to be heard and needs to be heard expeditiously. So there’s no question about that.
Everybody agrees it needs to move forward. Now, the question that we don’t have control over, I mean, you just don’t, is once submitted, what the court is then going to move, how expeditiously will they remove? There was a thought that maybe they’ll do a summary reversal or a procurement opinion. Then others yesterday were telling me, no, I think you’re going to be prepared, you need to be prepared to argue this in ten days or 14 days.
Then they may give argument to one side and not the other. We just don’t know. I mean, it’s going to move. We’ll keep everybody posted. But what we’re saying is at this point a live controversy and we don’t know exactly how the court will not as soon as we know if we got something tomorrow afternoon, we’ll, come on, we’ll get it out through our social media posts and whatnot.
You’re following us on everything. Everybody needs to be following us because there could be movement on this tomorrow. Seriously. Bye. .
