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Donald Trump is restored to the Colorado ballot in an unprecedented case.  Image c/o Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline By Anthony Romero News Reporter On March 4th, the Supreme Court ruled that states may not disqualify former President Donald Trump from running in the upcoming presidential election. The judgment was announced before the Super Tuesday primaries and ultimately rejected challenges made by legislative officials in Colorado, Maine, Illinois, and other states that sought to remove Trump from their presidential primary ballots. The Colorado Supreme Court came to its decision by citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which explicitly disqualifies government officials from running for public office after engaging in insurrectionist behavior. Colorado’s justices purported that Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election resulted in the January 6th riots on the Nation’s Capital, making him ineligible to run for president. “We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” wrote the Colorado Court’s majority. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment traces its origins back to the post-Civil War Reconstruction Era, acting as a legislative effort to address former Confederates who held office. A criminal conviction in this context is not necessary to enforce the provision, and Congress has historically refused to seat members under this clause. In the March 4th decision, all nine justices were in agreement, and the unsigned majority opinion of the court cited that this constitutional power resides with Congress instead of the states. Although states may use Section 3 to address dubious candidates running for state office, they do not have the same authority to enforce this law against candidates for national office. If states were allowed to disqualify federal government officials, an increase in disagreements regarding the eligibility of prospective leaders would threaten the stability of the relationship between the federal government and the people of the United States. Despite all justices reaching the same conclusion, there were some distinctions in their written statements, none directly addressing Trump’s actions as outright insurrection. Five of the Conservative justices (Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh) completely agreed with the majority opinion that Section 3 does not qualify states with the power to remove a federal official or candidate. In addition, they also concurred that Congress would need to develop legislation that creates an “enforcement mechanism” to enact the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment. This call for additional Congressional legislation was opposed by the three liberal justices (Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson) as they saw the Court’s legal jurisprudence as excessive and would only serve to shut the door on other potential methods of enforcement. The three Justices agreed with the majority opinion that Section 3 is reserved for Congress, but they urged the Court to practice judicial restraint when proposing to make decisions on matters that extend beyond this specific case. Justice Amy Coney Barrett made a distinctive stance by separating herself from both factions in her concurring opinion. Justice Coney Barrett agreed with the liberal Justices’ claim that the Colorado Supreme Court’s majority opinion overreached in suggesting additional federal legislation to enforce the disqualification provision. However, she questioned the liberal Justices’ tone and suggested that her fellow Justices not amplify their disagreement with the majority opinion. Justice Barrett stated the significance of the Court’s decision on this controversial issue, emphasizing that the unanimous agreement should serve to quell tensions in the nation, not to incur further polarization. “For present purposes,” she wrote in her opinion, “our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”
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Check out the women-led class happening today in the Recreation Center at 5:00pm! By Jenevieve Monroe News Editor In honor of International Women’s Day and the Recreation Center’s women-led classes, here are some accomplished Gaels that began their athletic career at Saint Mary’s. Valerie Fleming  Image c/o Michael Maloney, SF Gate Olympic silver medalist in women’s bobsled, class of 03’ Growing up in Foster City, California, Fleming has always had a home in the Bay Area. She grew up playing a variety of sports, spending her youth dreaming of becoming an Olympic athlete. During her college undergraduate years, Fleming took up javelin at the University of California at Santa Barbara and placed as the women’s champion of the Big West Conference. Fleming then sought her master’s degree in Health, Physical Education, and Recreation at Saint Mary’s College of California. In February of 2006, she went to compete in women’s bobsledding at Italy’s Olympic Winter Games and came home with a silver medal. Louella Tomlinson  Image c/o Harry Cabluck, ESPN WNBL champion, Hungarian league champion, class of 11’ As the daughter of a triple-Olympian father and a double world champion mother, Tomlinson knew at a very young age that basketball would be her passion. After graduating from high school in Melbourne, Australia, she attended Saint Mary’s College of California to receive her bachelor’s degree in kinesiology while also serving as a student athlete for the women’s basketball team. Tomlinson left her mark internationally; by the time she graduated, Tomlinson had set an NCAA record with 156 blocks as a freshman. She returned to Australia as a center for the Dandenong Rangers, leading them to victory in the 2011 to 2012 WNBL championship. For the following season of 2013 to 2014, Tomlinson moved to Hungary to play for the Hungarian club PINKK-Pécsi 424 and also led them to championship. In honor of these amazing Gaels, make sure to go check out the Recreation Center’s “Intro to Rock Climbing with Chloe” at 5:00pm (walk-ins welcome)!  Image c/o Chloe Ourada
 Image c/o Joe Raedle/Getty Images By Matthew Colvin News Reporter Measles, the viral infection once thought to have been largely eliminated from the United States, has returned in force, with 35 cases having been reported from within 15 states as of February 22. With numbers increasing exponentially in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world and new cases popping up weekly within American borders, experts are becoming increasingly concerned about an outright outbreak.
Prior to the first measles vaccine being distributed in 1963, nearly all children in the US caught measles by age five, and three to four million Americans were infected a year; the average domestic death rate was four to five hundred. The infection usually begins with an intense fever, sometimes as high as 105° F, before developing symptoms of a cough, pink eye, and runny nose. Two to three days after that, the most recognizable indicator of measles manifests; a red, spotty rash that starts at the head and spreads its way all over the body. The disease usually runs its course in about ten days. No effective treatment exists, only the preventative vaccine, and while that vaccine has an incredible efficacy rate, that means very little if a majority of the population doesn’t get it. Unfortunately, that is the exact situation that epidemiologists are faced with worldwide. Measles vaccination rates have been in a constant state of decline since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and are yet to show any sign of increasing again. With everybody indoors, no measles being spread, and all the focus on a different virus, measles vaccination rates began to lower in 2019, and infection rates shot up not long after. The increase has been exponential; according to the World Health Organization, its European region alone saw an increase from about a thousand cases to over 30,000 in the last year. This increase is “unfortunately, not unexpected given the declining vaccination rates we’ve seen in the past few years,” according to John Vertefeuille of the CDC. Measles is commonly referred to as the ‘inequity virus,’ due to the fact that infection rates have always trended higher in poorer countries, simply because those countries don’t have ready access to the vaccine in the same way that first-world nations do. As such, the general status quo has been that measles has always been exterminated from nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom, but even that has been changing in 2024. England seemed to be the first major inflection point; despite having a long-time status of having eliminated measles, 166 cases popped up from January to February 15 alone, twenty of which were in London. Experts have attributed it to abnormally low vaccination rates for children in the past few years, and while the outbreak has caused a handful more parents to get their children vaccinated, “there are still hundreds of thousands of children who remain unprotected, and therefore remain at risk of serious complications or lifelong disability,” said Dr. Vanessa Saliba of the UK Health Security Agency. The United States seems to be catching on to that unfortunate trend, too. While the nation’s total measles infection count was 58 for all of last year, the US is already on track to surpass that with 35 reported cases; and it’s only the end of February. The biggest outbreak so far is in Florida, with eight cases centralized in that state alone, mostly at Manatee Bay Elementary School, near Fort Lauderdale. With Florida’s Surgeon General not locking the school or area down, the state has come under fire for giving the virus a prime chance to spread. Given that unvaccinated people have a 90% chance of being infected if exposed, the decision to leave Manatee Bay Elementary and the surrounding area open has been labeled by many as risky at best; even a small handful of unvaccinated children could catch and spread the virus to a much larger population. According to Dr. David Kimberlin, an expert of pediatric infection diseases at the University of Alabama, these cases are “not going to stay contained just to that one school, not when a virus is this infectious.” While the United States no longer has any endemic variant of measles, these cases appear to be coming from international travel, and spreading to unvaccinated individuals within the States’ borders. While measles usually clears up in seven to 10 days, it can induce complications such as pneumonia and seizures, and in severe cases, can cause death. |
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May 2024
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