Excerpt:
It’s extremely difficult to square this ruling with the text of Section 3 [of the Fourteenth Amendment]. The language is clearly mandatory. The first words are “No person shall be” a member of Congress or a state or federal officer if that person has engaged in insurrection or rebellion or provided aid or comfort to the enemies of the Constitution. The Section then says, “But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability.”
In other words, the Constitution imposes the disability, and only a supermajority of Congress can remove it. But under the Supreme Court’s reasoning, the meaning is inverted: The Constitution merely allows Congress to impose the disability, and if Congress chooses not to enact legislation enforcing the section, then the disability does not exist. The Supreme Court has effectively replaced a very high bar for allowing insurrectionists into federal office — a supermajority vote by Congress — with the lowest bar imaginable: congressional inaction.
This is a fairly easy read for the legal layperson, and the best general overview I’ve seen yet that sets forth the various legal and constitutional factors involved in today’s decision, including the concurring dissent by Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson.
Yeah, the Supreme Court’s record on key issues is not great. Citizens United, for example, is at the root of a lot of the current troubles.
But a big part of the problem is actually the structure of US democracy itself. US democracy was set up primarily to prevent tyranny, and it does that through separation of powers. And it has been successful in that regard. However, the structure the founders created also causes gridlock on key issues.
In the US, it is relatively rare for one party to be fully in charge for any length of time. In a Westminster-style parliamentary system, on the other hand, a majority government usually gets a chance to implement their program and then they deal with the consequences in the next election. The role of the opposition is to point out all the stupid things the government does. When something goes poorly, it is clear who is to blame.
One of the problems with the US system is that the parties can legitimately blame each other when nothing gets done, which means they can avoid accountability.
In parliamentary systems, the government of the day bears the blame for fuck ups, whereas in the US system there is a tendency to blame the institutions. Perhaps that’s why you see surveys in the US where people strongly approve of their local representative, but have very low approval of Congress overall. This lack of power and accountability for the government is also why the Supreme Court is such a huge force in the US. Gridlock doesn’t change the fact that decisions need to be made, so more and more key decisions are being made either by the Supreme Court or by presidential decree.
Also, having a President is just a bad idea. I believe the US only has a President because Washington was so revered at the time. Having such a singular, king-like office with actual power inevitably creates a cult of personality. In contrast, parliamentary systems turn the king or his representative into a powerless ceremonial position that stays silent on political issues.