Former President Donald Trump’s appeal of a Colorado ruling barring him from the ballot may force the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in directly on his 2024 election prospects, a case that legal experts said will likely pull its nine justices into a political firestorm.
That state was the first, followed by Maine, to rule that Trump was disqualified from seeking the Republican presidential nomination due to his actions ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, an unprecedented legal decision that the nation’s top court could find too pressing to avoid.
“I doubt that any of the justices are pleased that they’re being forced into the fray over Donald Trump’s future. But it seems to me that the court will have no choice but to face these momentous issues,” said attorney Deepak Gupta, who has argued cases before the Supreme Court.
The justices, Gupta said, will have to act with “unusual speed and, hopefully, in a way that does not further divide our deeply divided land. That is a daunting and unenviable task.”
This presents an interesting problem for Republicans, and by interesting I mean an unwinnable scenario.
See, if the conservative judges put Trump back on the ballot, they will instantly give more ammunition to people already screaming for court reform.
That’s the one thing the conservative legal movement fears.
On the other hand, if they don’t come up with some excuse to justify putting Trump back on the ballot, the maga mob will declare them traitors and might actually try to kill them.
The trick will be threading that needle, and I don’t think it’s possible.
I want to agree, but I think they can safely assume Dems are not capable of reforming the court. People (including me) will scream about it but no one will actually do anything about it.
Not unless we vote for people who actually want reform. Joe Biden doesn’t want reform. I’m still going to vote for him, but I’m also voting for more progressive candidates in the downticket primaries.
I agree 100%. I should have clarified current Democratic party leaders, and it is definitely still important to vote for the better choice in every election even if the candidates aren’t perfect.
Like all politicians, Democrats will recognize the self interest in having fair elections. If the court is going to hand the elections to Republicans against the rules, they will suddenly see the need to reform the court.
So, even from a pessimistic point of view, they either uphold the law as it clearly should be or face their end.
Worst case scenario: the Trump Justices recuse themselves pretending to care about conflict of interest. This allows them to avoid the mob and get rid of Trump. When he gets a negative ruling based on mostly the non-Trump judges, the Republicans are able to campaign on getting the presidency and a senate super majority, in order to impeach all of them and we end up with a 9-justice right wing court.
The repbulican establishment would gladly sacrifice Trump to get the full court.
They just rule it’s within Colorado and Maine’s rights to determine who’s on their ballot. Like it is. Realistically this unfortunately probably helps Trump cause he was never gonna win either of those states and big bad liberals trying to keep Trump out plays great to the base and will get his supporters out to the polls.
They could choose to point out Trump has not been found guilty of a 14th amendment offense in a court of law and enforce innocent until proven guilty and say after a guilty verdict, maybe.
This seems really obvious to me. I mean of course we all know he’s guilty, but even I think it would be bad precedent to act before a conviction - from then on, every election the Republicans will immediately try to disqualify whoever the Democrat(s) opposing them are the same way (just with made up crimes)
I always assumed that was the strategy. Trump has a huge handful of lawsuits in the pipeline. None of them will technically prevent him from holding office. This specific ruling will make it clear, “Yes, he is disqualified.”
I’m not confident it’s necessary, but I understand the legal argument that it should be more clear, which is what this does.
I’m not sure what you are saying. The supreme court is clearly not going to rule that he’s disqualified. Like the grandparent comment said - he’s not convicted, so he’ll stay on the ballots.
Right. But without this case, what happens when he is eventually convicted of insurrection?
We would have to go through all the legal arguments we’re going through now.
This case is being brought up now so that we already have the answer.
…
I assume the Republican establishment wants to get rid of Trump, but they also want to be able to blame it on the democrats so that it helps their preferred candidate and they don’t anger their base.
Weirdly, I think some in the democratic establishment haven’t learned their lesson, and want Trump to run. Arguably easier to beat for Biden. Super risky strategy though, given inflation.
If they rule in favor of Trump that presidents are above the law: Biden should just blow up the court with expansion (as has been done before anyway) If they rule against Trump death threats incoming.
No win here.
Expanding the court requires the approval of Congress, which Biden won’t get.
If they rule presidents are above the law, he could (and perhaps even should) simply kill them himself without any possible retaliation, but seeing as he’d never actually do that they don’t have to worry about it.
I hope it’s not too late, but I do fear that Republicans have been allowed to do whatever they want with no consequences for too long.
I share your concerns friend.
It’s even better than that, actually, because it also undermines one of the key fringe ideas that the alt-right is spreading: the independent state legislature theory. If the Supreme Court steps in to override Colorado’s decision, it would preemptively utterly destroy one of the tactics the right is planning on: have red state legislatures deny victory to anyone but Trump despite whoever wins the election.
ISL was already struck down by the USSC https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/politics/2023/06/27/supreme-court-decision-independent-state-legisltaure-doctrine/11514835002/
Ah. Well, good news then!
Yes, I was very very happy that day 🙂
This one’s easy. There’s no constitutional right to run for president.
Wait until the stacked supreme court rules otherwise.
i agree with other posters… their best option is throwing it back to the states. they can rule that the states each get to decide on ‘is insurrectionist’ that is then only removable by 2/3rds of congress, per the constitution. leaves them without having to actually make a decision.
NAL but isn’t Constitutional law a federal issue the must be ruled on by SCOTUS? Otherwise it seems that SCOTUS would, in effect, be redundant if states can individually rule on constitutional matters.
right, the supreme court could absolutely decide that the states get to decide.
think of it this way… its up to the supreme court to decide how the law was intended. the only specific roles mentioned in the constitution are where the 2/3rds of congress can ‘remove the penalty of being an insurrectionist’… this implies that the states (via congress) have the right to both decide who, and who does not get marked as ‘insurrectionist’.
the house cant decide for individual states, and so each state could be left to decide for themselves… leaving it to an action of congress to undo.
They’d be negating any power they have if they did tho … essentially making SCOTUS useless.
I mean it’s why they’ve sided with citizens/groups who have challenged the state attempts at gun regulation, based on the 2nd Amendment.
its not like they are saying ‘ok, from now on all laws are left to the states’.
were talking about the interpretation of a single clause here, which very specifically involves states rights … and its like youre ignoring the part where it would take their ruling to allows the states to do it.
i dont understand how you think thats removing them from the process.
Because if SCOTUS gives up power in one area of Constitutional law, it opens the door for them losing ruling power over the whole Constitution.
Article 1, Section 4 of the Constitution explains that the States have the primary authority over election administration, the “times, places, and manner of holding elections”.
The US Constitution already says it’s the State’s authority. They don’t cede anything because they are just following what the Constitution says on this one specific issue.
Article 3, Section 1 and 2 state that SCOTUS is the supreme court of justice for everything to do with the Constitution. There is nothing there that says SCOTUS can abdicate its job by bumping anything to do with the Constitution to a lower court.
I mean, they are the ones who are deciding if the precedent applies by the time it gets back up to them.
Also, you assume that basically anyone in the scotus gives a shit about long term consequences. They know they can get their 10-20 years before all the hell impacts them.
Like with a lot of these things: You are assuming good faith action. This is not a nickelodean sitcom where logic and puns trap the villains. The villains in this case will just say “We rule in our favor”
making a ruling isnt giving up something. their job is interpretation and nothing more.
i think if youre expecting a ‘he is’ or ‘he isnt’ ruling from the supreme court, youre going to be disappointed. thats just not how they function.
You’re saying they have the option to bump it down to the states. Then why did a lawyer say this?
"I doubt that any of the justices are pleased that they’re being forced into the fray over Donald Trump’s future. But it seems to me that the court will have no choice but to face these momentous issues," said attorney Deepak Gupta, who has argued cases before the Supreme Court.
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They won’t. They will throw it to Congress since it will give the Pope what he wants.
How is this news? We already knew that they may have to rule on this issue…
I think it’s because if he had just sat quietly and not pushed, they could have dithered and dallied and dragged it out. Now that he’s pushing, it forces them to get off their arses and actually do their job.
While that’s fair, the writing has been on the wall since the first article that Colorado republican party was going to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. Particularly after they were quoted as saying that in the article. All this article does is reiterate and stoke the flames a bit. The only “interesting” thing in my opinion would be if SCOTUS said they weren’t going to entertain the case.
Moving along, I’m interested to see if they do take this case, or if they use some legal tomfoolery to punt it.
