Page:Trump v. Anderson.pdf/8

8 provisions of the Amendment against the States. It would be incongruous to read this particular Amendment as granting the States the power—silently no less—to disqualify a candidate for federal office.

The only other plausible constitutional sources of such a delegation are the Elections and Electors Clauses, which authorize States to conduct and regulate congressional and Presidential elections, respectively. See Art. I, §4, cl. 1; Art. II, §1, cl. 2. But there is little reason to think that these Clauses implicitly authorize the States to enforce Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates. Granting the States that authority would invert the Fourteenth Amendment’s rebalancing of federal and state power.

The text of Section 3 reinforces these conclusions. Its final sentence empowers Congress to “remove” any Section 3 “disability” by a two-thirds vote of each house. The text imposes no limits on that power, and Congress may exercise it any time, as the respondents concede. See Brief for Respondents 50. In fact, historically, Congress sometimes exercised this amnesty power postelection to ensure that some of the people’s chosen candidates could take office. But if States were free to enforce Section 3 by barring candidates from running in the first place, Congress would be