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| Donald Trump |
If it feels like you are living through history this morning, that's because you are. The Colorado Supreme Court ruled yesterday that presidential candidate Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on the state's 2024 ballot because of his actions related to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The court invoked Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, holding that Trump had engaged in an insurrection against the U.S. government, meaning that disqualified him under the Civil War-era Section 3. No such ruling ever had been issued in an American court.
Despite the historic nature of the Colorado ruling, comments from Republicans and rulings from some courts, indicate a number of people in prominent positions still don't understand what Section 3 means.
From a report at CBS News, by reporter Melissa Quinn, under the headline "Colorado Supreme Court rules Trump is disqualified from presidency for Jan. 6 riot":
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that former President Donald Trump is disqualified from holding the presidency under the Constitution's so-called insurrection clause and ordered the secretary of state to exclude his name from the state's Republican presidential primary ballot.
The landmark decision from the divided Colorado Supreme Court that Trump cannot hold public office under the Civil War-era provision is unprecedented, and it marks the first time a court has found him to be ineligible to return to the White House due to his conduct surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Never before has a court determined that a presidential candidate is disqualified under the clause, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The ruling does not apply outside of Colorado, and the state high court, whose justices were all appointed by Democratic governors, paused its decision until Jan. 4 — one day before the deadline for Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold to certify the candidates for the state's March 5 primary.
"We conclude that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot," the court's majority wrote in an unsigned opinion. "Therefore, the Secretary may not list President Trump's name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, nor may she count any write-in votes cast for him."
This is not the first time Trump's candidacy has been challenged. In fact, similar lawsuits have been filed in more than half of U.S. States. Writes Melissa Quinn:
Lawsuits challenging Trump's candidacy have been filed in more than 25 states ahead of the 2024 election, though the Colorado case brought on behalf of six voters marks the most immediate threat to his campaign. National polls show Trump atop the field of candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination.
Trump will appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, a spokesman for his campaign said, setting up a high-stakes showdown over his eligibility to run just as voters in early states begin casting their ballots in the Republican primaries. In pausing its decision, the Colorado Supreme Court said that if review to the nation's highest court is sought before Jan. 4, its stay will remain in place, and the secretary will be required to list Trump on the 2024 primary ballot until the U.S. Supreme Court rules.
The seven-member Colorado Supreme Court divided 4-3 on the ruling, with its majority reversing the trial court's finding as to the scope of Section 3 to conclude that it encompasses the office of the presidency and one who has taken an oath as president.
"President Trump asks us to hold that Section Three disqualifies every oath-breaking insurrectionist except the most powerful one and that it bars oath-breakers from virtually every office, both state and federal, except the highest one in the land," the majority wrote. "Both results are inconsistent with the plain language and history of Section Three."
In response to the decision, Griswold noted that it may be appealed and said she will "continue to follow court guidance on this important issue."
The ruling was a big victory for the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group that brought the lawsuit on behalf of six Colorado voters -- four Republicans and two unaffiliated. The ruling also drove home the impact of Trump's mounting legal problems on the presidential race. From the CBS News report:
Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which brought the lawsuit in Colorado, praised the decision and said the group will work to ensure that it remains in place.
"The court's decision today affirms what our clients alleged in this lawsuit: that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist who disqualified himself from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment based on his role in the January 6th attack on the Capitol, and that Secretary Griswold must keep him off of Colorado's primary ballot. It is not only historic and justified, but is necessary to protect the future of democracy in our country," he said in a statement.
The case adds to the ongoing legal issues facing Trump and his presidential campaign, including a criminal case related to the 2020 presidential election that is set to go to trial in March if allowed to move forward.
As for Section 3, it is unfamiliar to many Americans because it never has been invoked against a presidential candidate in our lifetimes. Writes Quinn:
The Colorado case hinged on whether Section 3 bars Trump from the nation's highest office. The provision aims to prevent those who swore an oath to support the Constitution and engaged in insurrection from holding state or federal office.
CREW argued for the plaintiffs that Trump's actions related to the Jan. 6 assault disqualified him under Section 3. Dozens of suits filed across the country have raised the same argument, though several have already been dismissed by state courts.
In November, a trial court in Denver found that the events on Jan. 6 satisfy the definition of insurrection, and concluded that Trump engaged in insurrection through incitement. Judge Sarah B. Wallace ultimately determined that the language of Section 3 is unclear as to whether it covered the presidency and the former president, and ordered Griswold to list Trump on the GOP presidential primary ballot.
The Colorado Supreme Court agreed to review the district court's ruling, and held arguments in the case earlier this month. The justices weighed whether the events of Jan. 6 could be considered an "insurrection," and, if so, one that Trump "engaged in." They also considered whether the president is an "officer of the United States" under Section 3.
In determining that Trump engaged in insurrection, the Colorado high court said there is "substantial evidence" that the former president was "laying the groundwork for a claim that the election was rigged" before the November presidential contest.
Trump, the majority said, "continued to fan the flames of his supporters' ire, which he had ignited" by making false claims about the integrity of the election on social media and in a speech outside the White House on Jan. 6.
"President Trump's direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary," the justices wrote. "Moreover, the evidence amply showed that President Trump undertook all these actions to aid and further a common unlawful purpose that he himself conceived and set in motion: prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election and stop the peaceful transfer of power."
The high court found that Trump "did not merely incite the insurrection," but "continued to support it" by continuing to urge then-Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally toss out state Electoral College votes.
"These actions constituted overt, voluntary, and direct participation in the insurrection," the majority wrote.
Justices Richard Gabriel, Melissa Hart, Monica Márquez and William Hood were in the majority, while Chief Justice Brian Boatright and Justices Carlos Samour and Maria Berkenkotter dissented.
In his dissent, Samour warned that because other states differ from Colorado in their election laws, Trump will likely be disqualified from the presidential primary ballot in less than all 50 states, "risking chaos in our country."
"This can't possibly be the outcome the framers intended," he wrote.
Legal analysts will be watching to see what impact the Colorado ruling might have in other states, perhaps prompting the filing of similar cases elsewhere. Writes Quinn:
Enacted in 1868, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment sought to keep former Confederate civil and military officeholders from serving in federal or state government, and was primarily invoked in the years after the Civil War. It has seldom been used in modern times, and never against a former president.
The Jan. 6 riot and allegations that Trump incited the attack, followed by his decision to seek a second term in the White House, led to lawsuits in more than half the states seeking to keep him off the ballots.
In Michigan, a judge ruled in November in part that it is up to Congress to determine whether Trump is disqualified from holding public office. The state court of appeals affirmed the lower court's ruling last week, finding that the secretary of state's role in the presidential primary is "chiefly that of an administrator," and it's the political parties and candidates that determine who to place on the primary ballot.
"Even if Trump were disqualified from holding the office of President of the United States by the Insurrection Clause, nothing prevents the Michigan Republican Party from identifying him as a candidate in the upcoming primary election," a three-judge appeals court panel concluded. Michigan voters challenging Trump's candidacy have appealed to the state supreme court.
In Minnesota, the state's high court dismissed a lawsuit seeking to exclude Trump from the ballot for the Republican primary because it is an "internal party election to serve internal party purposes" and doesn't automatically qualify the winner for the general election ballot.
The Minnesota Supreme Court said voters could, however, pursue their case regarding the general election ballot after the state's March 5 primary.
As has been the case for several months, no one in the Republican Party seems to have the spine needed to stand up and acknowledge that Trump's legal woes, along with his increasingly extremist rhetoric (which is drawing comparisons to Adolph Hitler) is a serious problem for the party -- and the country. Writes Quinn:
The decision from the Colorado Supreme Court prompted widespread condemnation from Republicans, including his opponents in the race for the party's presidential nomination.
Nikki Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, said in a town hall Tuesday evening in Agency, Iowa, that "we don't need judges making these decisions. We need voters to make these decisions. So I want to see this in the hands of the voters."
"The last thing we want is judges telling us who can and can't be on the ballot," she added.
Trump's other major challenger in the Republican primary, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, did not address the ruling during a campaign event in Ankeny, Iowa, but later tweeted that "the Left invokes 'democracy' to justify its use of power, even if it means abusing judicial power to remove a candidate from the ballot based on spurious legal grounds. SCOTUS should reverse."
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the most vocal GOP critic of Trump in the race for the White House, said the former president has not been tried for inciting an insurrection and is entitled to due process.
"I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being president of the United States by any court," he said during an event in New Hampshire. "I think he should be prevented from being president of the United States by the voters of this country."
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who remains in the primary race, predicted that the court's finding that Trump supported an insurrection "will haunt his candidacy."
House Speaker Mike Johnson criticized the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court, calling it "nothing but a thinly veiled partisan attack."
"Regardless of political affiliation, every citizen registered to vote should not be denied the right to support our former president and the individual who is the leader in every poll of the Republican primary," he said in a post to social media. "We trust the U.S. Supreme Court will set aside this reckless decision and let the American people decide the next President of the United States."
Johnson's comment comes with a heavy dose of irony, given that evidence shows he clearly engaged in the Jan. 6 insurrection, meaning he could be disqualified under Section 3 from serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, where he is the current speaker.
The comments from Haley, DeSantis, Christie, and Johnson suggests that quite a few high-profile Republicans still have no clue what Section 3 means, and you probably can bet that Donald Trump is totally ignorant on the subject of Section 3. We soon will learn if Republican appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court have any idea what the provision holds -- and if they are willing to rule according to the plain language of the U.S. Constitution, which they are sworn to support and defend.
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