The Colorado Supreme Court's decision to block Donald Trump from running in that state's Republican primary sent off the shock wave typical of historic gestures Tuesday night, but was far from the final word in the legal debate over whether the former The president may or may not run in the November 2024 elections.
First, because the decision, based on the Fourteenth Amendment and deeming it proven that Trump participated in an “insurrection” during the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, only implies the following: that his name was not allowed to appear Ballots from Colorado, a state that voted Democratic in 2016 and 2020. But above all because, like so many in this country, the final say will lie with the Supreme Court in Washington.
Colorado justices, in a narrow 4-3 vote, gave the former president's lawyers until Jan. 4 to appeal to the Supreme Court, and they immediately confirmed they would do so. A few hours later, they also asked the Supreme Court not to address another outstanding question: whether the tycoon enjoys immunity for his actions in recent months in the White House.
The Supreme Court's nine justices, three liberals and six conservatives, three of whom were appointed during Trump's term, could decide not to take up the matter, but that is highly unlikely. “It is almost impossible for them not to take the case,” Paul Collins, a professor of law and political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and author of several books on the Supreme Court, said via email this Wednesday. “It addresses a question of extraordinary importance that has not yet been answered: whether the Disqualification Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies to the office of President.”
Nikhel Sus, one of the lawyers who litigated the Colorado case on behalf of a Washington organization called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) and has experience challenging Trump, made clear in a phone interview Wednesday that they trust that the Supreme Court will decide quickly. “Given the speed at which the case is progressing in the lower courts and the deadline, it is to be expected that they will want to expedite the process [el 5 de enero] It is up to the Secretary of State to decide which names appear on the ballot [de Colorado]. Even if everything is still a little uncertain.”
The nine justices of the US Supreme Court. Bottom row, from left: Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, the President, John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan. Above: Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson.J. Scott Applewhite (AP)
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To reach the White House, it is mandatory to be a US citizen, over 35 years old and have lived in the country for 14 years. The Constitution does not specifically prohibit this for someone under investigation for a federal crime (Trump faces 91 years). , in four different cases). Not even if he is found guilty.
But the aforementioned amendment, passed in 1868, contains a section, the third, that was drafted after the Civil War so that Southern rebels could not again violate the system by running for official positions. “No person shall be a senator or congressman, elector of the President or Vice President, or hold any civil or military office,” the text reads, “unless he or she has previously taken an oath of support for the Constitution of the United States and he or she has participated in an insurrection or rebellion against it, or gave aid or comfort to its enemies.”
An act of rebellion
Asked whether what Trump did on January 6, 2021, the day he called for a demonstration in Washington that ended with an attack on the Capitol, can be considered an act of insurrection, the Supreme Court has of Colorado answered firmly “yes” The speech he used to incite the crowds that day is not protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech. Late Wednesday morning, President Joe Biden agreed. “There is no doubt, zero,” he told reporters, “that he incited the insurrection.”
The Colorado judges also understand that this ban can be applied to the office of president, contrary to the criteria of Judge Sarah Wallace, who made the lower court ruling that was appealed, and contrary to the arguments of Trump's lawyers, who defended the The President is not an officer of the United States and his oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution” is not the same as the oath to support it described in the Fourteenth Amendment.
For Collins, who considers the long-form majority opinion released Tuesday to be “very well-reasoned,” the most likely outcome is that “the Washington Supreme will put Trump's name back on the ballot in Colorado.” “You can do this in different ways “, he explains. “For example, saying that the Fourteenth Amendment does not apply to the office of president, considering that preventing a run for the White House requires a criminal conviction, or saying that this is a political matter with which the courts should not be concerned.” . It is clear, he adds, that in the unlikely event that the Supreme Court chooses to do so, it does not have the authority to “block Trump from appearing in all 50 states.” “It would have to be a decision that needs to be made in each of them separately.”
If they find the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to be wrong, it would have repercussions across the country.
So why all the fuss? Because Colorado is a model that could be emulated in other areas, and even more so. If they were enough to make it mathematically impossible for Trump to collect enough votes, it would be tantamount to disqualifying him. Similar cases are currently pending in Maine, Michigan and Oregon, among others. In Minnesota and New Hampshire, attempts similar to Colorado's have failed in court due to procedural or jurisdictional issues.
“There is strong logic in the Colorado Supreme Court's reasoning that others could follow,” presidential historian Russell Riley said in statements to EL PAÍS. “Incidentally, it is a simple logic: it is better not to entrust the office again to someone who was so arrogant when he was sworn in for the first time.”
Riley, co-director of the Miller Center at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, uttered two words: “unexplored territory” that were heard repeatedly in the analyzes the next day. “There is no precedent for this in the presidential history of this country,” he clarified.
In the case of the Supreme Court, some analysts pointed to one thing: the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore, which settled the Florida vote recount dispute in the 2000 election and ultimately gave the presidency to George Bush Jr. “These are two cases with enormous implications for the functioning of politics in the United States,” says Collins. “This clearly showed how ideological the Supreme Court can be, and this case is likely to produce a similarly partisan result.” Curiously, the justices were able to regain much of their public support afterward. With his current approval ratings at an all-time low, it will be fascinating to see how his decision on Trump impacts his legitimacy with the public.”
Aside from the lack of confidence it inspires, the majority of U.S. Supreme Courts excel at interpreting the Constitution as faithfully as possible. So it will be interesting to see how they do this in this case. Curiously, like some of Washington's most famous judges, the legal theory behind Colorado's disqualification effort comes from the realm of “originalism,” which advocates not distancing oneself from a text written more than two centuries ago. That theory began to gain strength in August following the publication of a 126-page academic article for the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. The title was signed by William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, two renowned conservative academics.
After learning of the court ruling, Trump held a rally in Iowa, the state where the primary process to choose a Republican Party candidate will begin with caucuses in January. In front of his faithful, he made no reference to the Colorado judges, but said (in all caps) on his social network Truth that Tuesday was “A SAD DAY FOR THE UNITED STATES.” He also launched a fundraiser with a message in which he said: “This is how dictatorships are created.” “I will not let left-wing judges steal the votes of the MAJORITY of Americans.” The rhetoric is the same that has contributed to this in recent months has to further consolidate its base of believers.
Trump has an advantage that seems like a gulf to the rest of the Republican candidates, who responded to the news by closing ranks in defense of their primary rival. Trump's supporters talk about “political persecution,” believing that the multi-front judicial siege besieging the former president is a way to win in court that Democrats cannot achieve in the elections. One of those candidates, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, went even further at a public event Tuesday night, saying that the strategy in piling up cases against him was to improve his prospects in the primary so he could then defeat him can defeat on the bench he is running against Biden.
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