Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy praised the Supreme Court’s Trump ballot decision on Monday, but warned about one "under discussed" takeaway from the concurrence written by the liberal justices.
In a 9-0 decision, which Ramaswamy said was “good news,” SCOTUS ruled in former President Trump’s favor in his appeal over Colorado booting him from the primary ballot. It is Congress’s responsibility to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, not states, the Court said, therefore, “judgment of the Colorado Supreme Court…cannot stand."
But on X, Ramaswamy said while the justices' agreement is noteworthy, especially at a time when the Court is concerned about the "perception of institutional legitimacy," there’s “subtext in the concurrence” that Americans “need to open our eyes & see.”
The entrepreneur explained in a video what he meant.
“We have to dig a layer deeper. I didn’t think that three-justice added concurrence was all that necessary today," he said, referring to where they disagreed with their conservative colleagues.
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The justices agreed that Colorado's decision needed to be reversed, as it would've created a "chaotic state-by-state patchwork at odds with our Nation’s federalism principle."
However, they said that is where the decision should have ended.
"Yet the majority goes further ... They decide novel constitutional questions to insulate this Court and petitioner from future controversy," they wrote. "Although only an individual State’s action is at issue here, the majority opines on which federal actors can enforce Section 3, and how they must do so."
"The majority announces that a disqualification for insurrection can occur only when Congress enacts a particular kind of legislation pursuant to Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment," the three justices continued. "In doing so, the majority shuts the door on other potential means of federal enforcement. We cannot join an opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnecessarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment."
Further, they objected to the fact that the decision rules out judicial enforcement of Section 3 and places limitations on how Congress can act.
“By resolving these and other questions, the majority attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office,” they wrote. (ABC News)
"Why did they have to go out of their way to say that? It’s interesting," Ramaswamy noted.
"I think the subtext of what’s going on is, yes, they did reach the right result today," he continued. "They were intent on doing it 9-0, but that buys them the political capital, the latitude to maybe go a different direction in some of the other Trump cases that present themselves that they know are coming down the pike….and so while there was a good decision here, I think there's also a small warning embedded in there that at least some of those justices—and they planted the breadcrumbs today—are prepared to go in a different direction should a slightly different set of facts in a slightly different case present themself as is almost certain to be the case in the remainder of this year. So I think that is the subtext and one of the under discussed takeaways from the press today…"
9-0 decision: good news.
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) March 5, 2024
Subtext in the concurrence: they dropped some breadcrumbs we need to open our eyes & see.
Here’s what is at stake. pic.twitter.com/S8eVzAhDpF
