Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 16.0

2 

TRUMP v. ANDERSON 

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

five Justices go on.  They decide novel constitutional ques-
tions to insulate this Court and petitioner from future con-
troversy.  Ante, at 13.  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 Amend-
ment.  In doing so, the majority shuts the door on other po-
tential  means  of  federal  enforcement.  We  cannot  join  an 
opinion that decides momentous and difficult issues unnec-
essarily, and we therefore concur only in the judgment. 

I 
Our  Constitution  leaves  some  questions  to  the  States
while committing others to the Federal Government.  Fed-
eralism  principles  embedded  in  that  constitutional  struc-
ture decide this case.  States cannot use their control over 
the ballot to “undermine the National Government.”  U. S. 
Term  Limits,  Inc.  v.  Thornton,  514  U. S.  779,  810  (1995).
That danger is even greater “in the context of a Presidential 
election.”  Anderson v.  Celebrezze, 460 U. S.  780, 794–795 
(1983).  State  restrictions  in  that  context  “implicate  a
uniquely important national interest” extending beyond a 
State’s “own borders.”  Ibid.  No doubt, States have signifi-
cant  “authority  over  presidential  electors”  and,  in  turn, 
Presidential  elections.  Chiafalo  v.  Washington,  591  U. S. 
578, 588 (2020).  That power, however, is limited by “other
constitutional  constraint[s],”  including  federalism  princi-
ples.  Id., at 589. 

The  majority  rests  on  such  principles  when  it  explains
why Colorado cannot take Petitioner off the ballot.  “[S]tate-
by-state resolution of the question whether Section 3 bars a 
particular candidate for President from serving,” the major-
ity explains, “would be quite unlikely to yield a uniform an-
swer consistent with the basic principle that ‘the President