Weekly Spotlight: Supreme Court Scraps a Vital Accountability Measure
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado could not bar former President Donald Trump from appearing on the primary ballots.
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On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that Colorado could not bar former President Donald Trump from appearing on the primary ballots, subsequently ending other states' efforts to enforce the Constitution’s disqualification clause and to hold Trump accountable for his involvement in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. In light of his performance on Super Tuesday, the ruling makes Trump's appearance on the presidential ballot this November all the more likely.
The justices’ decision does not dispute state-level findings that the former president did in fact engage in the insurrection, skirting that matter altogether and instead honing in on the technicalities of who the power of Section 14 enforcement belongs to.
By ruling that states can’t ban insurrectionists from running for federal office, the justices scrapped a central and vital enforcement mechanism of the 14th Amendment. Four justices raised the concern that the decision went too far, warning that in addition to cutting off state enforcement the majority’s ruling limits federal enforcement to particular kinds of legislation from Congress. Those concerns may soon be tested.
OP-ED
Joe Biden must focus on accountability at Border Patrol
During a trip to the border last week, Biden called for more agents at the border. But adding more border agents with less accountability is bad strategy.
OP-ED
Why the A-10 Warthog Retirement Is a Disaster
The fight to save the A-10 has never been about the airplane. It has always been about saving the capability and the institutional knowledge of the attack pilot community.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Given all these costly failures and this abhorrent track record of fiscal accountability in the military-industrial complex, how much more defense are taxpayers actually going to get? I don’t think just throwing another $200 billion at the problem is going to fix everything else.”
Geoff Wilson, Director of the Center for Defense Information, in Defense News
ONE LINERS
“Expediency is ... top of mind for the administration, but it can’t be at the expense of the Senate playing its proper role in giving their advice and consent.”
Liz Hempowicz, Vice President of Policy and Government Affairs, in E&E News by Politico
“It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the more gadgets that you bolt onto an aircraft, the more things that can break and keep that aircraft grounded.”
Dan Grazier, Senior Defense Policy Fellow, in Scripps News
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