Banning Trump From Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot: Depriving American voters of the right to choose; The Folly of Colorado’s Trump Disqualification; Sandbagging the Supreme Court; Trump vs. the Banana Republic of Colorado

Banning Trump From Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot

Depriving American voters of the right to choose.

The Colorado Supreme Court took it upon itself to bar former President Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s ballot in the 2024 presidential primary election. The Colorado Supreme Court, by a 4-3 vote, based its assault upon the fundamental democratic right of eligible Coloradans to vote for the candidate of their choice on Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Under Section 3, a person is disqualified from holding public office who violated his or her oath as an “officer” of the United States to support the Constitution by engaging “in insurrection or rebellion against the same…”

The Colorado Supreme Court held that Mr. Trump was disqualified from holding the office of president of the United States because he allegedly engaged in what Colorado’s highest court concluded was an “insurrection.” The court below had made the same finding of an “insurrection,” using as evidence the politically biased congressional report drafted by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol. However, the lower court judge had held nevertheless that Section 3 did not apply to Mr. Trump as president of the United States, reasoning that a U.S. president was not technically within the category of “officer” covered by Section 3.

The Colorado Supreme Court reversed that specific portion of the lower court’s opinion and went on to order that Mr. Trump was disqualified from appearing on Colorado’s 2024 presidential primary ballot. Recognizing the inevitability of an appeal of its decision, the Colorado Supreme Court stayed its order until at least January 4, 2024, pending possible U.S. Supreme Court review.

The Colorado Supreme Court majority handed down a decision worthy of a banana republic. The U.S. Supreme Court must promptly accept an appeal of, and firmly strike down, this outrageous decision by four progressive state judges who nullified the right of Trump supporters to vote for him in Colorado’s 2024 Republican presidential primary. If left standing, the decision could deprive more than a million Coloradans who voted for Trump against Biden in the 2020 general election to vote for him again in 2024.

The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives impeached Mr. Trump in 2021 for allegedly inciting an insurrection on January 6th at the U.S. Capitol, which the House concluded was among the Constitution’s impeachable “high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” The House impeachment resolution specifically referred to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which it said “prohibits any person who has ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against’ the United States from ‘hold[ing] any office … under the United States.’”

The U.S. Senate is the legislative body duly authorized by the U.S. Constitution to determine whether an individual impeached by the House should be convicted. Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 of the Constitution provides: —>READ MORE HERE

The Folly of Colorado’s Trump Disqualification

Four state Supreme Court judges ban the former President from the 2024 ballot without due process.

The Folly of Colorado’s Trump Disqualification

The decision by four Colorado judges to bar Donald Trump from the state presidential ballot is an ugly turn that augurs nothing but trouble for American law and democracy. Even if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the ruling, as it probably will, the Colorado decision will confirm for millions of Americans that Mr. Trump’s opponents will do everything possible to deny them their democratic choice.

Anti-Trump lawyers have been peddling that Mr. Trump can be disqualified under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Colorado’s 4-3 Supreme Court majority is the first court to buy the argument, and in the process it has blundered into the middle of the 2024 election. The four Democratic justices join special counsel Jack Smith and New York and Georgia prosecutors in providing ironic assistance to Mr. Trump in gaining the GOP presidential nomination, and maybe the White House.

The court says Mr. Trump is disqualified under the post-Civil War 14th Amendment because he inspired and “engaged” in an “insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. that took place on Jan. 6, 2021. They rely largely on evidence compiled by the House Jan. 6 special committee.

Mr. Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election through Jan. 6 was disgraceful, and it is one of several reasons not to trust him with so much power again. It was an attempt to obstruct the counting of electoral votes. But the evidence is unpersuasive that this amounted to an insurrection or rebellion under the statutory or constitutional meaning of those terms.

The justices claim the 14th Amendment is “self-executing,” which means that ballot disqualification doesn’t require a conviction in court. Yet the Senate acquitted Mr. Trump of the impeachment charge of insurrection. And Mr. Smith, the special counsel, didn’t include insurrection under 18 U.S.C. Section 2383 of the U.S. criminal code in his four-count indictment of Mr. Trump. Does anyone think the hard-bitten Mr. Smith would shy from doing so if he thought he could prove it before a jury?

The court’s chief justice, Brian Boatright, cited the lack of a conviction for insurrection in his dissent from the Colorado majority. And in a separate dissent, Justice Carlos Samour wrote that Mr. Trump was denied the “procedural due process” required before disqualification is justified. The 14th Amendment was written to guarantee due process to all Americans, not to deny it. —>READ MORE HERE

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+++++Sandbagging the Supreme Court+++++

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