Do Donald Trump’s actions during the assault on the Capitol make him unelectable? The nine judges of the US Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, will try starting this Thursday to resolve this burning issue, without giving rise to suspicions of interference in the campaign for the November presidential elections. The Court will weigh the Republican’s fight to remain as an electoral candidate in the state of Colorado in a case that has a lot at stake not only for the former president, but also for the judges.
The justices will hear arguments in Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s December 19 decision disqualifying him from the state’s Republican presidential primary based on the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution for his participation. in the assault on the White House on January 6, 2021.
Trump is the favorite for his party’s nomination to face Democratic President Joe Biden in the US elections on November 5. With several challenges related to the 14th Amendment emerging, it is important that Trump’s candidacy overcome any obstacles to appear on the ballot in all 50 states. Maine also excluded him from its vote, a decision that was put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Colorado case.
For the Supreme Court, whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three Trump appointees, the case presents novel legal questions. If the ruling is decided strictly along ideological lines, the judges risk being portrayed as partisan. Not since the court ruled in the landmark Bush v. Gore case, which handed the disputed 2000 U.S. election to Republican George W. Bush against Democrat Al Gore, has the court played such a central role in a presidential race.
The largely unprecedented nature of the case complicates any prediction, but many experts believe Supreme Court justices will be tempted to dismiss a “very politically sensitive” case. “The majority of the Court will not want to give the impression that it has deprived a significant number of voters of their choice of candidate” by confirming the decision of the Colorado court, Steven Schwinn, professor of constitutional law at the University of California, told AFP. Illinois.
Six Colorado voters (four Republicans and two independents) filed a lawsuit in an attempt to keep Trump out of the state’s elections by invoking Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. This provision excludes from office any “official of the United States” who has taken an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” and then “engages in an insurrection or rebellion against the same, or has given aid or comfort to its enemies.” “. The amendment was ratified after the Civil War of 1861-1865, in which secessionist southern states that allowed the practice of slavery rebelled against the United States government.
Colorado’s high court decided that Trump, through his actions, ranging from making false accusations of widespread voter fraud to urging his supporters on Jan. 6 to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell,” participated in the insurrection. . It also decided that Trump aided “the insurrectionists’ common illegal purpose of preventing the peaceful transfer of power in this country.”
Donald Trump’s lawyers call Colorado’s decision an “anomaly” and ask the Supreme Court to overturn it to “protect the rights of tens of millions of Americans who want to vote for President Trump.”
However, they devote the bulk of their final written arguments to a seemingly secondary issue, endeavoring to demonstrate that the presidency of the United States is not one of the functions covered by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, invoked to claim ineligibility.
Among their key arguments, Trump’s lawyers argue that he is “not subject to Section 3” because a president is not an “official of the United States,” a position they say is typically appointed or charged by the president. . They also maintain that courts cannot enforce Section 3 without congressional legislation, which prohibits people from holding public office but not running for it, and that in any case Trump did not participate in an insurrection.
The magnate’s lawyers reiterated that the events of January 6, 2021 did not constitute an insurrection, since they “did not involve an organized attempt to overthrow or resist American institutions” and that their client had no responsibility.
The plaintiffs are led by Norma Anderson, 91, a lifelong Republican and former Colorado state legislator. They maintain that a president is clearly an “official of the United States” because “it would make no sense to interpret Section 3 as disqualifying all oath-breaking insurrectionists except the one who holds the highest office in the land.” They have also said that Section 3, like other requirements for office, can be enforced by states without federal legislation.
When the judges decided to accept and expedite Trump’s appeal, just two days after he filed it, they did not resolve the many legal questions surrounding the case. It’s not yet clear what they might focus on during oral arguments, but their questions may indicate how they will resolve the dispute. With Colorado’s presidential primary taking place on March 5, also known as “Super Tuesday,” the justices could issue a ruling quickly.
