The unlikely journey of the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution ended this Monday in Washington, where the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Donald Trump has the right to appear in the Colorado primary scheduled for March 5th. Colorado is one of 15 states voting on Super Tuesday.
“Because the Constitution makes Congress, not the states, responsible for enforcing Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment against federal officials and candidates, the Colorado Supreme Court erred in ordering the disqualification of former President Trump from the 2024 presidential primary.” , says the Supreme Court.
The Denver Supreme Court had ruled in December that the so-called “disqualification clause” of the policy text could be applied to the former president because of the acts classified as “insurrection” that he committed in the weeks before the storm on January 6, 2021 Mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol after a rally in Washington in which Trump urged them to march to the headquarters of the US Congress, where congressmen and senators met that day to confirm the election of Joe Biden's victory in the elections. Elections last November. The Republican candidate refused to accept this result and (along with a third of voters) still does not accept it.
Colorado, where the lawsuit was filed by a group of voters, was later joined by the state of Maine and last week, in a surprise move, by an Illinois judge who ruled that Trump could not run in the March 19 primary. However, both decisions were put on hold until the verdict was announced in Washington on Monday. In practice, all of these initiatives will be rejected this Monday, as will Colorado's. During these months, more than thirty similar lawsuits were filed across the country.
Protest outside the Supreme Court on February 8, the day the court heard arguments in the Trump disqualification case in Colorado. SHAWN THEW (EFE)
The nine Supreme Court justices (three liberals and six conservatives, three of whom Trump appointed during his White House tenure) heard arguments from both parties on February 8 and already seemed committed to agreeing with the Supreme Court lawyers. former president.
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The entire discussion revolved around the interpretation of a few sentences from the Constitution, a total of 95 words that were very rarely used and on which the Supreme Court had never decided. This is the third section of the Fourteenth Amendment, an addendum to the basic text adopted in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War (1861-1865). It served to grant full rights to enslaved people and to create a containment dam that would prevent Confederate rebels from holding public office again and blowing up the system from within.
The text consists of two parts. The first states: “Whoever has previously sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, as a member of Congress, as an officer of the United States, or as a member of the legislative assembly of any State, or as an executive or judicial officer,” in an insurrection or participated in a rebellion against the United States or provided aid or relief to the country's enemies. The second continues: “Congress, however, may, by the consent of two-thirds of each House, remedy this inability.”
During this oral hearing, doubts were expressed as to whether this text expressly refers to the position of presidents and whether it is a provision that applies automatically or whether Congress must enact it. Trump's lawyers argue that speech to his supporters on January 6 was protected by free speech. The defendant claims that his exclusion would have amounted to an act of political persecution.
It's the second time in less than a week that the Supreme Court has given impetus to the former president over his plans to return to the White House four years later. Last Wednesday, the court ruled that it would answer the question of whether Trump was granted presidential immunity as he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election, once again postponing the start of the tycoon's trial in Washington the events that led to the attack on the Capitol. The hearing to hear oral arguments from both parties is scheduled for April 22. It is foreseeable that it will be weeks before the nine judges make their decision, perhaps in June. Only then, and only if they disagree with Trump and deny his immunity, can the election interference trial begin. That could mean a delay until September or October.
The legal theory of disqualification began to take shape last August when a 126-page scholarly article for the University of Pennsylvania Law Examination was circulated ahead of publication. Entitled “The Expansion and Strength of the Third Section,” it was signed by William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, two renowned conservative academics, who argue that the disqualification clause is alive and that there is no doubt that Trump's actions fit its description correspond. This Monday the Supreme Court ruled against them.
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