The Colorado Republican Party on Wednesday appealed that state’s Supreme Court decision that found former President Donald Trump is ineligible for the presidency, the potential first step to a showdown at the nation’s highest court over the meaning of a 155-year-old constitutional provision that bans from office those who “engaged in insurrection.”
The first impact of the appeal is to extend the stay of the 4-3 ruling from Colorado’s highest court, which put its decision on pause until Jan. 4, the day before the state’s primary ballots are due at the printer, or until an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is finished. Trump himself has said he still plans to appeal the ruling to the nation’s highest court as well.
To me, all of these cases seem ridiculous. Trump is simply ineligible to hold office — full stop. The fourteenth clearly spells out the remedy, which does not include litigating in court. It states:
So there it is — the amendment should be decided by Congress. Not the courts. Not the voters.
Also, who cares if he ends up on a ballot? States would have a responsibility to invalidate his electors (should he win any) who would be engaging in violation of the fourteenth by voting for an insurrectionist and therefore they too are ineligible to hold office. In my opinion, the whole exercise is a waste of time designed to protect someone not worth pissing on if he were on fire.
Republicans know they lose if they do that. Republicans don’t control 2/3 of both houses of Congress.
The lawsuits are there to force a decision on whether the amendment even applies in the first place. The Republican line is still that there was no insurrection.
There is no mechanism for any state to second-guess electors after an election. That’s kind of a bad thing to have.
It’s not really a waste of time for the d’s, down ballot voting is a thing. If trump isn’t on the ballot, a lot won’t vote at all and this probably worries the r’s.
While true, I think the bigger responsibility is for Congress to disregard any electoral votes for an ineligible candidate, and that’s going to be a much tougher fight.
Anything being decided at the state level just feels like theatrics and largely meaningless, especially in states that are very unlikely to win for Trump in the first place.