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.”
Gee I wonder how they’ll rule. A real judge would recuse from a case involving the one who appointed them. A real government would imprison a Justice who engages in open corruption. I guess we’ll just have to see if I’m right once again.
You don’t think they would throw Trump under the bus if they thought it might take some of the heat off them?
Gorsuch ruled on the case that the Colorado Supreme Court cited as precedence for their decision. He might recuse himself rather than attempt to reverse his own decision.
The Conservatives can still rule 5-3 in Trump’s favor, though.
Republicans aren’t above hypocrisy. He’ll make up some stupid excuse about how this case is different somehow. Maybe he’ll say that Trump isn’t an insurrectionist because he wasn’t successful, or maybe he’ll blame it on the phase of the moon, who the fuck knows
Republicans embrace hypocrisy. It’s the defining feature of conservativism.
While you’re probably right, the difference is that Gorsuch would give ammo to his enemies by reversing his own decision when he doesn’t need to in order for his team to win. IF he recuses himself, it is because he knows the other conservative justices will find for Trump.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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/
This one’s easy. There’s no constitutional right to run for president.
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.
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.
