Colorado Ballot: Supreme Court Justices Appear Skeptical of Arguments to Kick Trump Off State Ballots
Colorado Ballot: Supreme Court Justices Appear Skeptical of Arguments to Kick Trump Off State Ballots
The court heard arguments about whether the former president’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election disqualify him from again holding office. Justices across the ideological spectrum questioned several aspects of a ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court.
You're viewing a single thread.
It's because trump hasn't been found guilty of insurrection yet.
That's likely to take longer than next election, which is one of many reasons our justice system moves too slow.
Trump's main argument, though he doesn't admit to insurrection, is that he isn't technically an officer under the united states and so technically the 14th amendment doesn't apply.
He could be arguing, strongly, that he didn't commit insurrection but he's not. His lawyer basically said, "yeah, we don't admit that but it doesn't matter because of this technicality".
Its a super weak argument. Trumps lawyer gave the scotus very little reason to find in his favor other than, "if you find against us there will be a tit for tat among the states leading to chaos" which, yeah, but that's not a legal argument.
That's like sovereign citizen level bullshit. Crazy they're going with that.
Crazy but not surprising. Im sure Maga has many sovereign citizens in its roster.
Yeah, but he hasn't been found guilty yet ...
He obviously should, and probably will.
But it hasn't happened yet, and likely won't before the election.
Which is why I'm complaining about how long our justice system takes for the rich, they can stall
He was found by a court in Colorado to have engaged insurrection. A criminal conviction is not necessary. Just like there's no conviction necessary for any other disqualification like age, citizenship, residency, and all the others.
This?
That's a lawsuit, not a criminal trial.
Like, OJ wasn't found guilty of murder in criminal court, but he lost the civil trial.
I'm pretty sure that's the distinction
The 14th amendment requires no criminal conviction. Your whole argument about needing to be convicted of insurrection is just flat out wrong based on the actual text of the amendment. You can argue it's poorly written, and I might agree with you, but it says what it says.
The remedy for being disqualified by the 14th is to petition congress to remove the disqualification. Such remedies were petitioned for and approved in the 1860s and 70s without much fuss.
See, while what you're saying is true, it's not the whole truth.
The remedies in the late 1800's were required because Congress had already taken action to define the events of the Civil War as an insurrection. It was an act of Congress that they were having to appeal. There has been no similar act of Congress that Trump would need to appeal.
The core question, and one that the justices seem to be asking pointedly, is who determines whether someone's actions constitute "insurrection"? In the past, it was Congress. There's certainly an argument to be made that if someone was convicted of criminal insurrection, that would suffice. But absent those two, how do you make that determination, and who makes that determination.
I think the court feels that, while the 14th doesn't explicitly state how to make that determination, absent a criminal conviction or act of Congress, that there is no grounds to disqualify a candidate due to 14th amendment rules.
And I think I kind of agree. Or, at least, I think there should be some sort of objective metric that gets defined before making a determination. Especially since the last major use of the 14th was literally the Civil War, which, as bad as Jan6 was, is a pretty huge amount worse. And if we're plotting them along a continuum, to the left of Jan6 you have things like mass protests that attempt to shut down government functions to push certain agendas, which I think we all agree is well within the bounds of freedom of speech.
I'm not defending Trump, let me be clear. I am simply advocating that we note that there is nuance to this issue. Life is not painted in black and white. Just because something was bad, and even that it should be disqualifying, doesn't mean that it's easy to justify that fact in the current legal framework we exist in.
The state of Colorado has found, as a matter of fact, that Trump engaged in insurrection.
To argue that it takes an act of congress to declare someone an insurrectionist when the remedy for such a declaration is also congress doesn't make any sense. You can't have the same body deciding such things because you'd just have a chicken and egg situation (which is exactly what trump wants).
That's nice, but SCOTUS is going to disagree with your interpretation.
There's no point in arguing with any sense of clarity on any matter of Constitutional interpretation while this Supreme Court is on the bench. They will do whatever they want, and we will suffer the consequences as always
And a large part of the SCOTUS scepticism is why should one state be able to decide that as a matter of fact for the rest of the country. From their point of view this should be a federal decision.
And typically you wouldn't see Congress declare a single person as traitorous. Congress could declare Jan6 an insurrection, and then anyone involved who believes they should get an exception is allowed to seek remediation by Congress. Hardly a chicken and egg problem.
States have always determined candidate eligibility on their own. Congressional special bi partisan committee did declare this an insurrection.
Indeed. As with any controversial topic there are a lot more facts and nuances beyond knee-jerk reactions to headlines.
And so, I applaud you for taking the time to outline the issue with the depth it deserves.
I mean, Trump can go to hell, don't get me wrong.
But I am mildly frustrated that something this important is treated so superficially by so many in this and other threads. What can you do though?
Show me where in the 14th Amendment a criminal trial is specified?
What purpose would a criminal trial serve?
No. It isn't. If you read the summaries I saw from today, it says the Justices didn't even discuss whether he participated in insurrection. (Ed. nor anything about conviction. What have you been reading??)
Also if you look at the original Colorado ruling, it lays out in pretty great detail, based on the evidence presented, that Trump did, in fact, participate in insurrection.
It doesn't matter if Colorado lays out that Trump is an insurrectionist.
It doesn't matter if Trump in reality is an insurrectionist
It matters if he has been found guilty of insurrection, or an insurrection-like offense, through a final judgment on the merits
It doesn’t matter if Trump in reality is an insurrectionist
That's incorrect. It absolutely does matter if the candidate is an insurrectionist. It's literally the only thing that matters.
Read Section 3 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Section_3:_Disqualification_from_office_for_insurrection_or_rebellion ):
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
The language is deliberately vague here. It doesn't say a person needs to be convicted of anything, only that they committed the act. Colorado put forth an excellent case that the actions Trump engaged in count as insurrection.
During oral arguments in the court today, the justices hand-waved this aside and changed the subject, asking "what if" questions about them allowing Trump's removal, speculating that any state could easily gin-up boloney insurrection arguments against any candidate and have them yanked off the ballot. "What would we do then?" they kept asking.
From home, I'm yelling "You do your fucking job." Let the speculative bullshit charges be made, appealed, heard and rejected for the bullshit that they are, shaming the shit-slinging politicians for wasting the peoples' time.
It's hilarious that you got this exactly wrong. Nowhere does it say he needs to be convicted. Prior uses of this amendment haven't required convictions.
Prior uses of this amendment haven't required convictions.
So what? Even if true, why would SCOTUS care about that?
Trump is a former president of the United States who allegedly engaged in insurrection while actively serving as president, and was never convicted of any crime relating to that alleged insurrection.
Given those facts, you seriously think Alito, Thomas, Kavenaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Roberts are incapable of finding that those facts are so unique as to materially distinguish him from any prior application of the 14th amendment? Even after Dobbs? And Heller? And Citizen's United?
You're acting like you believe that SCOTUS must apply the law according to its plain text and in conformity with legal precedent. That is a delusion and a fairy tale.
A guilt verdict for insurrection was not required for any of the other people made ineligible by the 14th Amendment, why does a different standard apply only to Donald Trump?
Couy Griffin, for a recent example, was removed from office in 2022 based on the 14th Amendment; the only thing he was found guilt of was trespassing. And after the 14th Amendment was ratified thousand of Confederates who had been convicted of nothing filed amnesty requests with Congress to remove their disqualification under the 14th Amendment because it was well understood that a conviction wasn't required.
Go tell the SC.
I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm saying what the SC is using for an excuse.
Or this article:
Where the judge explains why she ruled different for a president.
She was then overruled in treating him differently.
You don't need to be. Why do u think otherwise?
Why do you think I'm a SC justice?
I don't. You obviously don't have the reading comprehension to be one,based on your response.
14A arguments have been used to DQ people many times in the past without court proceedings.
The Supreme Court is obviously going to put Trump on the ballot, but we shouldn't pretend they have any justified reason to do so.
Let's just ignore loopholes because Republicans would never use the same one twice!
/s
If we fight fascism with inaction, I do t like our chances.
We need to do shit not just say "it would happen anyways, nothing we can do"
Are you referring to 14A arguments outside of sec. 3? I ask because section 3 has only been applied to one non-confederate
Section 3 has been invoked since the Confederate issue was settled, but just once.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/01/11/14th-amendment-trump-insurrection-impeachment/
In a sense, yes. To be precise, the blame for this lies solely with inept, cowardly Merrick Garland, who took two and a half years to begin doing anything at all to hold Trump accountable. If not for Garland’s incomprehensible delays, the matter would have been settled well before ‘24 election season.
No blame for the president who though Garland would be a good SC pick and then made him AG?
I'm not saying "don't blame Garland" btw.
I'm pointing out one of the main reasons we're losing so hard is we're not even trying
Considering holding the orange dotard accountable was essentially his whole campaign platform, yeah, plenty of blame for Biden on this one too. But it was Garland’s job to do the needful and he slept on it, until finally calling in Jack Smith at the 11th hour to do something.
Too little, too late, once again snatching defeat from the jaws of victory - the DNC.