Trump’s Legal Victory in Colorado
Ever since anti-Trump forces began to weaponize the legal system to achieve political objectives through litigation rather than the ballot box, the former president has been attacked on multiple fronts. One major national effort has been to attempt to disqualify Trump from running as a candidate in Republican presidential primaries this year...
To date, these efforts have been unsuccessful. Trump has beaten back challenges in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. Most of those decisions have not reached the question whether Trump is, in fact, legally barred from running...
Only the Colorado case reached the merits. That case, therefore, is the most significant so far. And it gave the victory to Trump.
The anti-Trump challengers in Colorado invoked Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment to bar Trump’s candidacy. The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, during the Reconstruction period in the aftermath of the Civil War. Although other provisions of the amendment are frequently deployed in constitutional litigation, Section 3 has been little used since the Reconstruction Era.
In the parts most relevant here, the section identifies a class of federal or state officials who have taken an oath to “support” the Constitution upon entering office (as mandated by Article VI of the Constitution) but who thereafter have engaged in insurrection against the Constitution...
The U.S. Supreme Court (or some justices) may not wish to decide this issue if it is not necessary to do so. And as long as Trump remains successful in beating back disqualification challenges, the court may not think it necessary to take up the case...
Related
UNBELIEVABLE: State Supreme Court Removes Trump From 2024 Ballot, PJ Media, 19 December 2023:
The Colorado Supreme Court has decided that Trump cannot run for president in the state of Colorado. The Court, which is made up entirely of justices appointed by Democratic governors, decided without any evidence that Trump incited an insurrection and is therefore ineligible to run under the 14th Amendment. The ruling is likely to trigger a battle before the United States Supreme Court...
This move comes a month after a lower court ruled that Trump was indeed eligible to run...