The Colorado Supreme Court is removing former President Donald Trump from the primary ballot, saying he is ineligible to be president.
In a stunning and unprecedented decision, the Colorado Supreme Court removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot, ruling that he isn’t an eligible presidential candidate because of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”
“Even when the siege on the Capitol was fully underway, he continued to support it by repeatedly demanding that Vice President (Mike) Pence refuse to perform his constitutional duty and by calling Senators to persuade them to stop the counting of electoral votes.
“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.”
Ratified after the Civil War, the 14th Amendment says officials who take an oath to support the Constitution are banned from future office if they “engaged in insurrection.” But the wording is vague, it doesn’t explicitly mention the presidency, and has only been applied twice since 1919.
We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these unAmerican lawsuits,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Chief Justice Brian Boatright, one of the three dissenters on the seven-member court, wrote that he believes Colorado election law “was not enacted to decide whether a candidate engaged in insurrection,” and said he would have dismissed the challenge to Trump’s eligibility.
LINKS
AP: Colorado Supreme Court bans Trump from the state’s ballot under Constitution’s insurrection clause | @negativenull@startrek.website
Washington Post: Donald Trump is barred from Colorado’s 2024 primary ballot, the state Supreme Court rules | @silence7@slrpnk.net
CNBC: Colorado Supreme Court disqualifies Trump from 2024 ballot, pauses ruling to allow appeal | @return2ozma
NBC News: Colorado Supreme Court kicks Donald Trump off the state’s 2024 ballot for violating the U.S. Constitution. | 18-24-61-B-17-17-4
CNN: Colorado Supreme Court removes Trump from 2024 ballot | A Phlaming Phoenix
CNN:Colorado Supreme Court removes Trump from 2024 ballot based on 14th Amendment’s ‘insurrectionist ban’ | @Boddhisatva
New York Times: Trump Is Disqualified From the 2024 Ballot, Colorado Supreme Court Rules | @silence7@slrpnk.net
It will be taken all the way to the US supreme court, so we should really be tempering expectations. From everything I’ve learned, hypothetically, he should be off every ballot if the 14th amendment is self executing. But there are tons of different takes by different people with various roles in the political realm. Seems like some don’t think it applies to a president, that he didn’t aid or abet insurrection, or that the rule is not self executing and everything in between.
So tldr: it was always going to be making its way to the US supreme court. This is just a first step and a welcome one in my opinion.
Since Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is a eligibility clause, to over turn it would also overturn the age and having to be an American clause. It also overturns States Rights and Federalizes the entire nation.
My guess us the Supreme Court agrees or they defer to the Colorado Supreme Court decision.
Or they just arbitrarily say the rebellion clause doesn’t apply to Trump and do what they want which is their only goal anyway.
Stop pretending the system is legitimate in any way. It is not.
Stop this. You sound like a deep state nut. You can call the scotus corrupt or even illegitimate but don’t side with the authoritarians.
The system works if we make it work.
Yep I concur with your assessment. I think most people are imagining that the Supreme Court cares a lot more about Trump than they really do.
The safest option for Republicans politically is for them to defer and say it’s a state issue. Like you point out, overturning Colorado here could inadvertently empower the Voting Rights Act.
I think it’s unlikely for them to act rogue in this case, not only because they usually don’t for Trump, but because of how badly they’re viewed right now. They’re the ones who overturned Roe, and there’s very public examples of their corruption. Roberts seems cautious to push his luck.
Presumably self-execution is not that relevant here, since in every state there will be people with enough will and lawyers to take it to court?
Self-enforcing (edit: actually self-executing is the proper legal term) here means that the constitutional amendment doesn’t require a separate act of Congress. The opinion addresses this and says if the 14th Amendment wasn’t self enforcing (edit: executing), some absurd results would ensue. One would be slavery would still be legal.
This was rhe same argument with regard to the Fourth Amendment, that it would be absurd if it were not self executing; that every court must evaluate cases before it with regard to the Fourth Amendment, that every court must enforce an exclusionary rule, that to ban something in the Constitution is a command to all courts that they must apply the remedy: that illegally obtained evidence is inadmissible.
You cannot look at Trump’s comments about the metal detectors and the “1776 Plan” and conclude that thos was anything other than a violent attempted coup.
I believe the question with self-execution is whether you have to be found guilty of some insurrection-related crime.
Like a law saying felons can’t vote would require a felony conviction to trigger, while the age requirement for president is self-executing so by itself it prevents people younger than 35 from being president.
