- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
A judge has rejected three more attempts by former President Donald Trump and the Colorado GOP to shut down a lawsuit seeking to block him from the 2024 presidential ballot in the state based on the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”
The flurry of rulings late Friday from Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace are a blow to Trump, who faces candidacy challenges in multiple states stemming from his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection. He still has a pending motion to throw out the Colorado lawsuit, but the case now appears on track for an unprecedented trail this month.
A post-Civil War provision of the 14th Amendment says US officials who take an oath to uphold the Constitution are disqualified from future office if they “engaged in insurrection” or have “given aid or comfort” to insurrectionists. But the Constitution does not spell out how to enforce the ban, and it has been applied only twice since the 1800s.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/trump-eligible-president-abdul-hassan/675669/
Back in 2012 this lawyer thought that the equal protections clause should guarantee immigrants can run for president. So he sued. And none other than Neil Gorsuch argued that yet States have the right to “protect” voters from constitutionally unqualified candidates.
Which is odd, because now they fascist sympathizers are currently arguing that states should let voters decide if Trump is qualified. Hmmm.
In fascism, hypocrisy is a feature, not a bug. As Frank Wilhoit explained about conservatism in general:
There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect
Also:
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
–Jean-Paul Sartre
Yeah, those two great quotes go together like peanut butter and jelly or like rum and coke or liquorice and ice cream!
FTA:
"Wallace also swatted away arguments from the Colorado GOP that state law gives the party, not election officials, ultimate say on which candidates appear on the ballot.
“If the Party, without any oversight, can choose its preferred candidate, then it could theoretically nominate anyone regardless of their age, citizenship, residency,” she wrote. “Such an interpretation is absurd; the Constitution and its requirements for eligibility are not suggestions, left to the political parties to determine at their sole discretion.”
Such obvious bullshit, and I’ll give you an example from my own home state:
In the 2022 election, our previous governor was term limited and couldn’t run again.
The secretary of state found that the leading candidate did not meet Oregon residency requirements and banned him from the ballot.
Stuff like this is the JOB of the secretary of state. It’s literally what they do.
"The Oregon Constitution requires a candidate for governor to have been a “resident within this state” for three years prior to the general election.
Evidence reviewed by elections officials showed Kristof was instead a resident of New York until late 2020 or early 2021, having lived in New York for 20 years, maintained a New York driver’s license, received mail at his New York address, filed income taxes in New York and, as recently as November 2020, voted in New York."
So if a candidate isn’t on the ballot in a given state does that simply mean it’s impossible for them to win those votes in the electoral college? Does a candidate have to be on the ballot in all 50 states to run for the presidency?
TL;DR: Yes to the first question, no to the other.
One of the reasons why it’s currently literally impossible for a third party candidate to win the presidency is that, spitting on the very concept of democracy, some states have banned third party candidates from their polls entirely and others set unreasonable criteria that are either much easier for the two main parties to meet since they’re bigger and richer or that the main parties are simply exempt from.
does that simply mean it’s impossible for them to win those votes in the electoral college?
Depends on who you ask. Ask a Trump/Jordan/Boebert type, and the answer will be “Obviously the people wanted Trump but he was unjustly denied ballot access so we will hand the votes to Trump.”
If you doubt this in any way, go back and look at how many Rs voted to just arbitrarily throw out the election on Jan 6 2021 based on zero evidence or law.
Votes for ineligible candidates are basically ignored. That’s true if you vote for some cartoon character like Mickey Mouse, or someone who can’t be elected president for some reason like Obama (who has been elected the maximum number of possible times).
A candidate who’s on the ballot for any state is running for the presidency in a real sense, and major declared candidates often aren’t yet on the ballot. To be a viable candidate you need to be on the ballot for states/territories totalling 270 electoral votes, since this is the bare minimum to be capable of winning. During my lifetime there have usually been about 4 candidates on most/all ballots including the green and libertarian candidates on 48 and 50 states’ ballots in 2020 respectively.
To add to this, technically Trump could still be elected president even without Colorado, but he would have to flip another state or multiple states to get to the 270 electoral votes.
Keep in mind Colorado went for Biden by a margin of 13% last time - it trends blue-ish/purple, so if Trump becomes the nominee, his path to 270 would probably not count on Colorado.
What this might do is deaden down ballet GOP candidates. The GOP wouldn’t put up a replacement presidential candidate for just Colorado, so it would be write in only and that could mean less GOP straight ticket voters, impacting House and state elections.
One last thought - even if Trump loses this bid to remain on the ballot, I sincerely doubt it would impact his chances of being the party’s nominee.
If this holds, what’s the precedent set for his coconspirators and their runs for political office?
The same. If the Supreme Court acknowledges the validity of this law then criminals like Jim Jordan could be removed from Congress.
And Gaetz and Tommy Tube and 100% human senator Ted Cruz, amongst others.
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Lovely as that sounds I can’t imagine this Supreme Court ruling against Trump. Maybe if you could somehow erase their memory so they make a ruling without consideration of current politics.
The interesting bit is that it’s members of the federalist society arguing that Trump shouldn’t run.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/10/us/trump-jan-6-insurrection-conservatives.html
Trump doesn’t really understand law, and it’s the federalists that provided him with a list of right-wing judges to pick from, and it’s really federalists rather than Trump supporters who ended up capturing the supreme court.
Normally they’re both extremely right-wing so the gap doesn’t matter, but if the federalists turn on Trump you could see some supreme court judgements go against him.
Sadly, I’m forced to agree with you. In spite of their claim to be “Originalists” they have a curious habit of ignoring both law and precedent whenever it suits them. I don’t trust them to accurately name the color of the clear sky at noon.
Also issuing rulings and then saying “but don’t use this as precedent” which just means “we reserved the right to rule differently when it is politically expedient,” or perhaps, “we already know this is a bad ruling but we really want this person to win in this case.”
don’t trust them to accurately name the color of the clear sky at noon.
Yeah, just like they cited a 1600s witch hunter to justify ending Roe, they’d cite a misinterpretation of Homer as proof that the sky isn’t blue if it would help them politically and therefore economically…
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Originalism just means making up whatever they want and pretending it’s really what the framers wanted.
If they had previously held federal office, they would likely be successfully challenged as well.
If they had previously held any office or position - federal, state, local, military - where they took an oath to support the United States Constitution.
Where does Trump find the energy to participate in so many legal battles at once?
I’m gonna guess it’s Ritalin™ and Diet Coke™ ✨
By grifting the elderly to pay for lawyers of zero integrity
All of this is taking years off his life and that is cause to celebrate. I just hope he dies in prison
Jesus fuck, how many years did he start with then!?
It doesn’t help us that he still has access to good health care.
How do you get good at anything? Practice
These headlines about Trump don’t make Trump look stupid … they make America look stupid.
Seriously, the way he runs circles around courts and the judiciary is turning the American legal system into a joke.
The system was already a joke, this just hilights the issues.
It’s funny how efficient it is when you’re poor. They’ll give you a public defender that won’t answer your calls and you will only see them 5 minutes before the hearing. You won’t stand a chance, and that is by design.
We don’t have a justice system. We have a poverty pipeline.
Gotta keep that constitutionally protected slave class numbers up.
Good reason to never move to TX, MS, AL or GA.
IANAL though I thing if Trump is off of the ballot in CO then that could set some precedent to be referred to that would make it easier in other states (and law suits) to follow
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A judge has rejected three more attempts by former President Donald Trump and the Colorado GOP to shut down a lawsuit seeking to block him from the 2024 presidential ballot in the state based on the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”
The flurry of rulings late Friday from Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace are a blow to Trump, who faces candidacy challenges in multiple states stemming from his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection.
A post-Civil War provision of the 14th Amendment says US officials who take an oath to uphold the Constitution are disqualified from future office if they “engaged in insurrection” or have “given aid or comfort” to insurrectionists.
She said the key question of whether Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold has the power to block Trump from the ballot based on the 14th Amendment “is a pivotal issue and one best reserved for trial.”
Wallace also cited a 2012 opinion from Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, when he was a Denver-based appeals judge, which said states have the power to “exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office.” She cited this while rejecting Trump’s claim that Colorado’s ballot access laws don’t give state officials any authority to disqualify him based on federal constitutional considerations.
The current GOP front-runner, Trump denies wrongdoing regarding January 6 and has pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges stemming from his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
The original article contains 611 words, the summary contains 241 words. Saved 61%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
