You’ve probably heard about former President Donald Trump being disqualified from Colorado’s 2024 election ballot. The question is, will it actually stick?
“I don’t (think it will stick),” says Dr. Laura Wilson, political science professor at the University of Indianapolis, “in part because this will go to the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s a conservative court – three of the members of the court are actually former President Trump nominees.”
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 Tuesday that former President Trump’s involvement in the January 6th, 2021 Capitol riot was a violation of the 14th Amendment and it’s ban on insurrectionists running for public office.
“This goes back to post-Civil War. The 14th Amendment was written during that time,” Dr. Wilson explains, “the section 3 that’s particularly important here was (created) because of the Confederate soldiers and a concern that those involved in the Confederacy (whom) caused the nation’s great insurrection may want to get leadership positions and potentially have all this happen again. So, that third section barred people who had been involved in insurrections from serving in public office.”
But therein lies the problem, says Dr. Wilson. There have already been a few state Supreme Courts that have dismissed this exact legal challenge due to Trump’s January 6th-related legal battles still working through the court system. A detractor on the Colorado Supreme Court said they wouldn’t be able to judge Trump as an insurrectionist until the court cases are finished and a decision has been made that would actually fall under the 14th Amendment.
The former president plans to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court, calling Colorado’s ruling a “completely flawed decision.”
With a mostly conservative United States Supreme Court, Dr. Wilson says this will most likely go Trump’s way. However, with Colorado’s Supreme Court ruling to remove Trump from the ballot, there’s now curiosity about which state would swing that way next.
As for Indiana, Dr. Wilson isn’t convinced the state would remove the 45th president from the ’24 ballot, “I don’t see it happening in Indiana. In part, of course Donald Trump is highly popular here. He won by great margins in 2016 and 2020, and I would anticipate if he is the nominee in 2024 that he’ll be successful in the Hoosier State in 2024.”
President Joe Biden told reporters Wednesday the decision will play out in court, but that he believes Trump has certainly further aligned himself with insurrection ideals.
2 comments
Apparently democrat operatives want a civil war. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does not mention the President or Vice-president as being barred. Second, Mr. Trump has not even been accused or charged with insurrection. Just because democrats say it was an insurrection doesn’t make it legally so. Congress suspended their activities for 5 hours then proceeded to declare Joe Biden President. On January 20, 2021 He was duly sworn into the office of President. The country has gone nearly to the bottom since then. Doesn’t trump have a right to due process and being innocent until proven guilty. SCOTUS had better clarify this issued pretty Darn quick. Not to mentions 40,000 hours of video the J6 Committee hid from us showing perhaps dozens of federal agents mixed into the crowd urging them on.
What’s the confederacy have anything to do with Jan 6 2021 nothing. If anything the civil war was fought over Lincoln’s tyrannical tax increases. Learn some real history