Trump is challenging a groundbreaking decision by the Colorado Supreme Court that said he is disqualified from being president again and ineligible for the state’s primary.
That's more or less what I read into the questioning. They're not going to rule he didn't do an insurrection, or that he can't be disqualified for that, they're going to rule a single state can't make the decision.
Realistically they're going to look at precedent, how it was used in the past. The cases where it's been used in the past fall into two groups - public officials of the Confederacy and people convicted in criminal court of an appropriate charge (which includes one case of someone being convicted of a Jan 6 related charge and before that the last application was a case in 1919 of someone convicted under the Espionage Act).
I fully expect them to say that barring holding a public position in a group whose purpose violates 14A that they would require a criminal conviction. Because that's the only thing that fits precedent.
The alternative that people seem to be hoping for is that a candidate should be able to be barred from the ballot if a state judge feels it's likely enough they violated 14A, where "likely enough" isn't clearly defined (and doesn't require any particular due process) but is definitely enough to bar Trump. I just don't think that's going to happen.
Sadly, the 'right thing' in this case actually is to rule against Colorado. It will be an utter shit-show with each state deciding which candidates can or can't run in their state if this is upheld.
It's based on a legal theory from the constitution. There's no grey area on this one, just what brand of feelings people use to justify their position.
There is actually good reason to keep someone off a ballot who attempts a coup, and tries to take power by undemocratic means. And it's not really that hard to see where the reasoning comes in.
I kinda get what you mean, but this is a candidate who tried to overthrow the government. There's legal and logical basis for excluding them from being a candidate.
Bullshit. Colorado already decides which candidates can or can't run un their state. They did in 2012 when they disqualified a presidential candidate. The case went to court, and justice Gorsuch wrote the opinion that yes of course Colorado has that right.
Meh, elections are already a shit-show. The popular vote is disregarded, and the candidate with fewer votes can win...this is a undemocratic. Democracy is fundamentally broken already.
But it's not a flaw SCOTUS has any business fixing. It needs to be done via Congress, and probably a constitutional amendment.
America's entire federal voting system is...not done federally. Each state is left to decide how it wants to run its elections themselves, with the states drawing electoral boundaries, deciding rules for who's eligible to vote, how the physical act of voting is done, etc. This is an utterly insane way to run a national election. States can set their own rules for state elections, maybe, but federal elections should be consistent nation-wide.
Until Congress fixes this incredibly fundamental flaw in the US electoral system, states have the right to do shit like this whether for good (and hopefully we can all agree that anything that keeps Trump out of office is good) or ill (because you just know Republicans will twist it in states they control).
I’d agree if this was the general ballot, but this is the GOP primary ballot. Pretty sure the party can do whatever they want. We’ll see if the court makes that distinction.
If it's Monday-Thursday, my bet is against Trump. If they wait until Friday, they are too scared of the repercussions and you know which way they will go.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Supreme Court decision could come as soon as Monday in the case about whether former President Donald Trump can be kicked off the ballot over his efforts to undo his defeat in the 2020 election.
The resolution of the case on Monday, a day before Super Tuesday contests in 16 states, would remove uncertainty about whether votes for Trump, the leading Republican candidate for president, will ultimately count.
Trump also has since been barred from primary ballot in Illinois and Maine, though both decisions, along with Colorado’s, are on hold pending the outcome of the Supreme Court case.
Separately, the justices last week agreed to hear arguments in late April over whether Trump can be criminally prosecuted on election interference charges, including his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The court’s decision to step into the politically charged case, also with little in the way of precedent to guide it, calls into question whether Trump will stand trial before the November election.
Of those, the only one with a trial date that seems poised to hold is his state case in New York, where he’s charged with falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to a porn actor.
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