Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf
Page Number: 20.0

6 

TRUMP v. ANDERSON 

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

Bush v. Gore, 531 U. S. 98, 158 (2000) (Breyer, J., dissent-
ing).  The Court today needed to resolve only a single ques-
tion: whether an individual State may keep a Presidential 
candidate found to have engaged in insurrection off its bal-
lot.  The majority resolves much more than the case before 
us.  Although federal enforcement of Section 3 is in no way
at  issue,  the  majority  announces novel  rules for  how  that 
enforcement must operate.  It reaches out to decide Section 
3 questions not before us, and to foreclose future efforts to 
disqualify a Presidential candidate under that provision.  In 
a sensitive case crying out for judicial restraint, it abandons 
that course. 

Section 3 serves an important, though rarely needed, role
in our democracy.  The American people have the power to 
vote for and elect candidates for national office, and that is 
a great and glorious thing.  The men who drafted and rati-
fied  the  Fourteenth  Amendment,  however,  had  witnessed 
an  “insurrection  [and]  rebellion”  to  defend  slavery.  §3.
They wanted to ensure that those who had participated in
that  insurrection,  and  in  possible  future  insurrections, 
could  not  return  to  prominent  roles.    Today,  the  majority
goes beyond the necessities of this case to limit how Section
3  can  bar  an  oathbreaking  insurrectionist  from  becoming
President.  Although we agree that Colorado cannot enforce
Section 3, we protest the majority’s effort to use this case to
define  the  limits  of  federal  enforcement  of  that  provision. 
Because we would decide only the issue before us, we concur 
only in the judgment.