Oyez, oyez, oyez: A listener’s guide to Supreme Court arguments over Trump and the ballot
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday on whether former President Donald Trump can be kept off the 2024 ballot because of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The justices will grapple with whether a provision of the 14th Amendment aimed at retaining former officeholders who “engaged in an insurrection” can be applied to Trump, the leading candidate in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
The Supreme Court has never looked at the provision, Section 3, since the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. But Trump appealed to the Supreme Court after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled he could be kept off the state’s primary ballot.
The court marshal will bang her gavel at 10 a.m. EST, but the livestream won’t begin immediately. The judges will issue advice in one or more cases that were argued earlier this term. It could be a few minutes before Chief Justice John Roberts announces the start of oral arguments in Trump v. Anderson, as the case is known. Until then, the live stream will not start.
The court has set aside 80 minutes for oral arguments, but in a case of such importance the hearing could easily last two hours or more.
There are no cameras in the courtroom, but since the pandemic the court has been livestreaming its arguments. Listen live at apnews.com/live/trump-supreme-court-arguments-updates or the court’s website at www.supremecourt.gov. C-SPAN will also publish the arguments at www.c-span.org.
Nearly everything at the Supreme Court is based on seniority, with the chief justice ranking first among peers. But after the lawyers deliver opening remarks, the next voice listeners will almost certainly hear will be the gravelly baritone of Judge Clarence Thomas. He served longer than any of his colleagues and for years rarely participated in arguments because he hated the free and constant interruption.
But when the court began hearing arguments remotely during the pandemic, Thomas started asking questions and hasn’t stopped. Under an informal agreement, the other judges remain silent so that Thomas can be the first to address the lawyers when the interrogation begins.
In a second round, the judges ask questions in order of seniority, with Roberts leading the way. Not everyone will necessarily have more to ask for at this point.
Once both parties have presented their arguments, the lawyer for the party that appealed to the court will receive a short, uninterrupted rebuttal.
The current court, especially the conservative justices, places great importance on the meaning of laws and constitutional provisions at the time they were passed. All sides argue that history favors their reading of the provision, but they will face many questions from the court.
The discussion is likely to focus on several terms in the provision as the justices try to parse its meaning. The lawyers will advance competing versions of whether Trump “participated in an insurrection.” They will also give their opinions on whether the presidency is an “office…under the United States” and whether the president is an “officer of the United States.” Much discussion can also arise about a phrase that does not appear in the amendment. Trump’s lawyers and allies argue that Section 3 is not “self-executing” and that Congress must pass legislation before the provision can be implemented.
Salmon Chase, the 19th century chief justice and politician, could get some airtime during the arguments for his views on whether Congress should act. In the space of a few months, Chase advanced seemingly contradictory opinions that Section 3 did not require further action, in a case involving former Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and that it did in the case of a black man who tried in vain to overturn a law. criminal conviction.