Read the full decision.
Given that Colorado isn’t a swing state, does this actually matter in practical terms?
It feels very much like a political show of sorts. Trump wasnt gonna get the CO vote regardless. Similar to how in kind, Texas is threatening to remove Biden from the ballot. Texas is gonna be a red vote no matter who is running until at least the boomers and gen xers die off.
Thank you for posting the full decision. I love checking the primary sources. Relevant points from the summary:
• The Election Code allows the Electors to challenge President Trump’s status as a qualified candidate based on Section Three. Indeed, the Election Code provides the Electors their only viable means of litigating whether President Trump is disqualified from holding office under Section Three.
• Congress does not need to pass implementing legislation for Section Three’s disqualification provision to attach, and Section Three is, in that sense, self-executing.
• Judicial review of President Trump’s eligibility for office under Section Three is not precluded by the political question doctrine.
• Section Three encompasses the office of the Presidency and someone who has taken an oath as President. On this point, the district court committed reversible error.
• The district court did not abuse its discretion in admitting portions of Congress’s January 6 Report into evidence at trial.
• The district court did not err in concluding that the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, constituted an “insurrection.”
• The district court did not err in concluding that President Trump “engaged in” that insurrection through his personal actions.
• President Trump’s speech inciting the crowd that breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, was not protected by the First Amendment.
As I’m reading this further, I have to say, this ruling is full of so much spiciness that I’m surprised the media hasn’t reported on it more. A few of my favorites so far (emphasis mine):
• If the Presidency is not an “office . . . under the United States,” then anyone impeached—including a President—could nonetheless go on to serve as President. This reading is nonsensical
• When interpreting the Constitution, we prefer a phrase’s normal and ordinary usage over “secret or technical meanings that would not have been known to ordinary citizens in the founding generation.”
• While nothing in Representative McKee’s speeches mentions why his express reference to the Presidency was removed [from the final draft of the 14th Amendment], his public pronouncements leave no doubt that his subsequent draft proposal still sought to ensure that rebels had absolutely no access to political power. Representative McKee explained that, under the proposed amendment, “the loyal alone shall rule the country” and that traitors would be “cut[] off . . . from all political power in the nation.”
• Representative McKee desired to exclude all oath-breaking insurrectionists from all federal offices, including the Presidency
They even went so far as to reference the fucking dictionary for those saying Trump never took an oath to support the Constitution.
• The language of the presidential oath—a commitment to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution”—is consistent with the plain meaning of the word “support.” U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 8. Modern dictionaries define “support” to include “defend” and vice versa. See, e.g., Support, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/support
My tinfoil hat theory is that the district judge did not want to be responsible for keeping trump off the ballot, be it safety for her/her family, or that it is such a momentous event that she did not feel comfortable bearing that weight alone. So she came up with this “not specifically references” conclusion as a soft punt to the state supreme court.
Makes sense. Had it been just her that ruled against him, Trump would’ve cast her as an activist Biden puppet. But now that the Colorado Supreme Court ruled against him instead, it’s harder to paint that picture.
Still, I don’t like the idea of judges being intimidated to rule in a way they know to be incorrect just so an appeals court can take the blame.
They do go on to quote the dictionary again (both from the 1800s and the current version) to define what an “insurrection” is, then say:
We have little difficulty concluding that substantial evidence in the record supported each of these elements and that, as the district court found, the events of January 6 constituted an insurrection.
Also, love how they basically reference what we all saw live here:
Moreover, contrary to President Trump’s assertion that no evidence in the record showed that the mob was armed with deadly weapons or that it attacked law enforcement officers in a manner consistent with a violent insurrection, the district court found—and millions of people saw on live television, recordings of which were introduced into evidence in this case—that the mob was armed with a wide array of weapons.
God damn. Some more spice in a quote about whether or not Trump “engaged in” insurrection since he wasn’t actually in the mob:
[I]t is not necessary to prove that the individual accused, was a direct, personal actor in the violence. If he was present, directing, aiding, abetting, counselling, or countenancing it, he is in law guilty of the forcible act. Nor is even his personal presence indispensable. Though he be absent at the time of its actual perpetration, yet if he directed the act, devised or knowingly furnished the means, for carrying it into effect, instigating others to perform it, he shares their guilt. In treason there are no accessories.
The ballot disqualification part is cool and all, but isn’t the bigger deal a legal ruling saying yes it was obviously an insurrection and yes he obviously incited it?
This decision was about whether the whole “not being allowed on the ballot if you incite an insurrection” thing was intended to apply to the president, or just everyone else. That’s a weird discussion to have after deciding a leading presidential contender obviously tried a coup. I’d really prefer we focus back on the coup part, and maybe less on the intentions of 150+ y/o lawmakers.
This decision was about whether the whole “not being allowed on the ballot if you incite an insurrection” thing was intended to apply to the president, or just everyone else.
Obviously, by any rational reading of the English language. But law is about arguing over what things that seem obvious actually mean, and this was slapping down a lower court that was arguing that it did NOT mean what it obviously means.
“The decision reverses a ruling by a lower court judge who found Trump engaged in insurrection by inciting his supporters to violence, but concluded that, as president, Trump was not an “officer of the United States” who could be disqualified under the amendment. The Biden campaign declined to comment.”
From the Constitution, Article II Section 1:
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.
He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years… :
… No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office…
… Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:–"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States…
But sure. The person running the Executive Office of the President is not, in fact “an officer”…
150+ year old documents written by law makers is how this country works. We can focus on both.
Sure but the intentions of people long dead doesn’t need to come into it, is my point. We can apply the law as it makes sense in the context of the present.
One of the tenets of our legal system is that our laws are applied evenly so that people understand what is legal or not.
If the interpretation of a law changes with time then you could find yourself a foul of the law when previously you weren’t. It’s why “precedent” matters.
Absent precedent we need to understand what the law makers meant with the words they used. Especially for old laws since language changes over time.
This is an important step and how the system works. We cannot and should not skip it.
What will happen next? I assume the (federal) supreme court will simply shoot it down. But I’d love to hear other opinions!
https://learnconlaw.com/78-the-disqualification-clause goes into this in detail - the short answer is that the federal supreme court will probably rule that the amendment doesn’t specifically call out the president as a person who can be disqualified and overturn the decision.
There is an argument to be made that the president is a “federal officer” so the ruling does stand, and that the intent was to bar confederates from public office so it would be weird to read the law as disqualifying a person from low level state office but not from the presidency, but it seems unlikely that the court would choose to do that given how partisan it is
There is an argument to be made that the president is a “federal officer” so the ruling does stand
What’s the argument that he’s not a federal officer? Basically everything in the Constitution refers to the office of the presidency, so claiming the president isn’t an officer sounds like some bullshit that idiots would come up with. Which makes sense why the republicans are trying that.
The argument that could be made is that in most of the rest of the constitution, anything that involves things the president can or can’t do explicitly says “the president”, so having an extensive list of positions that could be disqualified that doesn’t mention the president by name implies that the president isn’t included.
It’s not a good argument, and I suspect in saner times it would be pretty clear that the intent is that Trump can’t run.
It’s a toss up from what i can tell. Generally speaking it’s up to the states to determine how elections are done. And the supreme court doesn’t like to tell states how to do it. That’s why gendering is up to state laws and decisions.
But Trump’s court… Who knows? I’m willing to bet Thomas will be flying in an awful lot of private jets to nice resorts over the next few years.
As a foreigner I am surprised it took this long. Will likely not lessen the support for Trump, but nearly nothing will at this point.
As a foreigner who’s spent a lot of time in America, this may actually be good for Trump. I am not 100% sure how elections work in the US, but at most this will keep his name off a ballot Trump would never win and at best it will ensure his name has to be on every ballot. Assuming the SCOTUS overturns it, it sets a precedent that the POTUS is not an officer and therefore isn’t included in any legal language that concerns officers. Which opens up expansion of the powers of the executive. Still assuming that the SCOTUS overturns it it could play right into the Project 2025 playbook.