After oral argument in Trump v. Anderson, the only question was whether the U.S. Supreme Court would go 9-0 in reversing the Colorado Supreme Court's split decision to remove Donald Trump from election ballots, or merely 8-1.

Yesterday, in a ruling that should've surprised nobody, we learned that the Justices were unanimous. In an unsigned per curiam ("for the court") opinion, they ruled that "because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse."

The key to the whole thing was not—contrary to some predictions—Griffin's Case, an 1869 opinion by Chief Justice Salmon Chase holding that the ban on those who had engaged in insurrection could not be enforced without congressional action. Chase wrote that opinion while "riding circuit" in Virginia, so it's not binding on the Supreme Court.

No, the important precedent was more recent: the 1995 case U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton, which held that states couldn't add qualifications to federal offices beyond those listed in the Constitution. In that case, the Supreme Court rejected state attempts to limit the........

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