Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 18.0

4 

TRUMP v. ANDERSON 

SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, and JACKSON, JJ., concurring in judgment 

Ante,  at  5  (quoting  Griffin’s  Case,  11  F. Cas.  7,  26 
(No. 5,815) (CC Va. 1869) (Chase, Circuit Justice)).  These 
musings are as inadequately supported as they are gratui-
tous. 

To start, nothing in Section 3’s text supports the major-
ity’s view of how federal disqualification efforts must oper-
ate.  Section  3  states  simply  that  “[n]o  person  shall”  hold 
certain positions and offices if they are oathbreaking insur-
rectionists.  Amdt. 14.  Nothing in that unequivocal bar sug-
gests that implementing legislation enacted under Section 
5 is “critical” (or, for that matter, what that word means in 
this context).  Ante, at 5.  In fact, the text cuts the opposite 
way.  Section 3 provides that when an oathbreaking insur-
rectionist is disqualified, “Congress may by a vote of two-
thirds of each House, remove such disability.”  It is hard to 
understand why the Constitution would require a congres-
sional supermajority to remove a disqualification if a simple
majority could nullify Section 3’s operation by repealing or 
declining  to  pass  implementing  legislation.  Even  peti-
tioner’s lawyer acknowledged the “tension” in Section 3 that 
the majority’s view creates.  See Tr. of Oral Arg. 31.

Similarly,  nothing  else  in  the  rest  of  the  Fourteenth
Amendment supports the majority’s view.  Section 5 gives 
Congress the “power to enforce [the Amendment] by appro-
priate legislation.”  Remedial legislation of any kind, how-
ever, is not required.  All the Reconstruction Amendments 
(including the due process and equal protection guarantees 
and  prohibition  of  slavery)  “are  self-executing,”  meaning 
that  they  do  not  depend  on  legislation.    City  of  Boerne  v. 
Flores, 521 U. S. 507, 524 (1997); see Civil Rights Cases, 109 
U. S. 3, 20 (1883).  Similarly, other constitutional rules of 
disqualification, like the two-term limit on the Presidency, 
do not require implementing legislation.  See, e.g., Art. II, 
§1, cl. 5 (Presidential Qualifications); Amdt. 22 (Presiden-
tial Term Limits).  Nor does the majority suggest otherwise.