A number of cases are expected before the Court related to Trump and insurrection, including the Colorado ballot access case and Trump's appeal on immunity while in office. The Supreme Court could decide each of these without specifying whether or not Trump engaged in or gave aid to insurrection. Some expect the Court to punt on the central question of whether or not Jan 6 was an insurrection when making these rulings, wanting to avoid a political third rail.
This market is about whether or not the Court will take up the question of whether 1/6 was an insurrection, not on how they will answer it.
For example, the following would resolve YES:
Affirming Colorado's decision to take Trump off the ballot, specifying that he meets the criteria of the 14th Amendment's Section 3
Overturning the decision, on the grounds that Trump did not commit insurrection on 1/6
Text in a majority or concurring decision saying 1/6 was an insurrection
Text in a majority or concurring decision saying 1/6 was not an insurrection
Examples that do not include the above, but do include the following would resolve NO:
Affirming Colorado's decision on states' rights grounds without directly addressing whether 1/6 was an insurrection
Overturning the decision, ruling narrowly that disqualification requires enforcement legislation/a writ of quo warranto
Overturning; ruling narrowly that the 14th Amendment doesn't apply to candidates and only takes effect upon taking office
Overturning; ruling narrowly that Trump was not "an officer"
Text in a majority decision saying the Court will address the question of whether 1/6 was an insurrection in the future
This Federalist Society discussion may provide helpful context, as a majority of the justices have been involved in FedSoc and the legal theories it takes seriously. https://fedsoc.org/commentary/fedsoc-blog/2023-national-lawyers-convention-insurrection-the-14th-amendment
Because this is subjective, I won't trade. Question closes on 3/31, but I will extend if there are delays in the Colorado trial.
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I think this may have been a misresolution and would like more explanation. I am not betting in this market.
Your criteria:
From the concurring judgement, they said that the main question was whether the candidate found to have engaged in insurrection, therefore X (state keep a Presidential candidate off the ballot).
From the first page:
from the last page:
The concurring opinion mentions the word, "insurrection" or "insurrectionist" 12 times. They were saying that 1/6 was an insurrection. This constitutes text in a concurring decision which talks about insurrection (regardless of whether or not this was the only thing talked about).
The Majority decision does mention insurrection as well, 6 times, but mostly as a demonstrative artifact to basically say, "yeah, here's what the SCOCO found, we're not questioning that, we're questioning State Enforcement of a Constitutional Rule."
As to whether this had to do with the events of January 6th, 2021, as opposed to the sum total of all events over time, the majority DOES specifically mention January 6th, 2021 on page 2, in terms of its relevance toward the question:
Basically I think your mental model of what is going on seems to be based not on actually citing the decision and instead citing others opinions or news about the decision or something else? Can you please cite the decision itself and do some work to resolve this properly?
@PatrickDelaney I read the sentence in the concurring opinion mentioning insurrection as restating SCOCO’s justification for taking Trump off the ballot without making a judgment on the validity of that justification. The phrase “that is enough to resolve this case” implies the opinion is solely about the ability for a state to take a candidate off the ballot, rather than the underlying question about whether the justification is valid or not.
All times insurrection is mentioned are in the context of talking about the original decision (…”the respondents maintain…”), rather than a finding SCOTUS itself is coming to.
Other creators seem to be coming to the same conclusion. This market about whether SCOTUS agrees with SCOCO on Jan 6 being an insurrection is resolving N/A (ie that they did not address it either way) https://manifold.markets/GCS/will-the-us-supreme-court-agree-wit
And this market about SCOTUS overturning on the grounds that Jan 6 was not an insurrection resolved No, while Sec 3 resolved Yes https://manifold.markets/josharian/on-what-grounds-does-the-us-supreme
This question was always meant to represent “will SCOTUS tackle this important question for our democracy, or sidestep on a technicality?” At least 5 opted for the technicality, 1 expressly said her reasoning was political, and 3 when they had the opportunity to say “he’s an insurrectionist but we can’t let states decide federal questions” didn’t even do that.
@MarkHamill Thanks for pointing those out. I will read through this and those and get back to you.
So far what I have on those two links:
First one isn't over, I sent them a message as well.
Second one is a different question, it was asking for the grounds, whereas yours lays out criteria for YES and NO including a variety of different concepts.
Again, I will get back to you on the rest.
Also, please cite from the actual ruling, don't paraphrase because it might lead to mischaracterizing things. I don't know if you are, but it seems like it - even if unintentionally.
I read the SCOCO dissenting opinions. Justice Boatright, dissenter, basically did not contest that what Trump did amounted to insurrection, however believes that CO's justice system does not provide remedy for Colorado voters in dealing with Federal Constitutional issues. So what happens if the SCOTUS side steps the issue in a similar way that Boatright did, "We affirm with the dissenting opinion that Colorado does not have jurisdiction over this issue. We're not going to say whether it was insurrection or not but think it's probably pretty obvious from other cases what happened. Supreme Court signing off!"
E.g., what if they just totally go vague and side-step the issue, while ruling on the technicalities of the issue, "leaving it up to Congress," while also kind of implying that they agree it was an insurrection?
"We agree in principle that this was an insurrection but make no judgements as to what this means, it's up to you guys." (whoever you guys are...Congress, probably)
@PatrickDelaney Great question. I think in that case it would really depend on the text in the decision. Something saying “we agree in principle this was an insurrection” would resolve YES. Something that leaves it to Congress without making that kind of a pronouncement would resolve NO.