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But that district court judge, Sarah Wallace, ultimately ruled that Trump could remain on the ballot because she said it was not clear that the drafters or ratifiers of the 14th Amendment intended to cover the presidency in the insurrection clause.
This part really pissed me off. The 14th amendment is pretty clear that it refers to any and all people. Is it just me, or is judge Wallace implying that it isn’t clear that the founders believed the president is a person?
It does apply to the President. Colorado's judge erred here because they did not have access to Federal documents.
We have the minutes from the 39th Congress that literally indicates that it applies to the President.
Why did you omit to exclude them [The office of the President and Vice President]?
— Sen. Reverdy Johnson (D-MD)
Let me call the Senator's attention to the words 'or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States'
— Sen. Lot Morrill (R-MA)
It was a very specific question that was answered by the Senate while they were discussing it. So Judge Wallace's determination is incorrect on the merits. Judges can be wrong sometimes, that's why we have appeals.
You assume that the originalists on the court care what the framers of the amendment thought, when it goes against the decision they want to render.
Cool, I want to read it, which session and pages was it?
Here's the relevant page for anyone to lazy too click through. He even goes on to say "perhaps I am wrong as to the exclusion of the presidency, no doubt I am."
There was also some interesting debate on if it should expire after 1870, and the response was a pretty resounding no, it should be the law of the land forever. Some people recently have also pointed out the phrase about giving congress the power to enact laws to these effect, suggesting it doesn't do anything unless congress makes a specific law enforcing it. That didn't seem to be the view when they added it in to the amendment though, they wanted to say congress explicitly had that power so that it could override state law if states were in conflict with the constitution here. There was a concern that if they didn't add that, then only states would have the power by definition (any powers not explicitly given to the federal government are devolved to the states), and confederate states might choose not to enforce all the provisions of the fourteenth amendment. This would let congress explicitly over ride state laws in respect to equal protection and other parts of the amendment including the insurrection part. Obligatory IANAL disclaimer, but it was very interesting to read through. Some of the things I'm referencing were from an earlier day, may 23rd, there were a number of days where the amendment was brought up.
Oh they actually talked to each other and weren't forced to direct their questions to the chair?
Senate not House.
I thought the insurrection clause was a hard reach, but it feels really buttoned up when you take into account the discussions. Like I don't even see any maneuvering room. Which kinda sucks because I had emotionally accepted he was going to be the nominee and now I have hope.
What's really interesting is, what if he stays off the ballot in CO but wins the race? He's be the President of the US but ineligible to be President in CO. Seems like an actual constitutional crisis unless the SCOTUS ruling automatically removes him from every state.
If SCOTUS rules that trump can be removed from the Colorado ballot there will be a domino effect that will see him removed from a large number of other states.
There's zero chance of a 2nd trump term if SCOTUS rules that way.
That's not exactly true. Unless some battleground states remove him from the ballot it doesn't matter what the states who were going to vote blue do. He wasn't going to win there anyway. As a Colorado voter I would put us in that category. Trump's not winning CO no matter what happens in this case.
Wallace's decision was brilliant legal maneuvering. Having found Trump factually guilty of insurrection, higher courts cannot re-adjudicate or dismiss that fact. It is now written in stone.
Given that this case was going to be appealed, no matter what, her decision basically dropped an anvil on Trump's head. Now SCOTUS cannot disregard the fact that Trump engaged in insurrection. They're stuck with that, that's how our law works. Bet Trump's defense is pissed off.
Only way out now is some serious legal acrobatics to say that 14th does not apply to POTUS. LOL, he's fucked.
And remember, this court is conservative, not partisan. These judges owe neither the GOP nor Trump a damned thing. I'd bet you a crisp $20 bill that, like the GOP leadership, every one of them loathes the man. And unlike the GOP leadership, they no longer have to worry about votes.
They've already declined to hear one Trump case (maybe two?), thereby kicking his loss back to the lower court. Where, ya know, he already lost. They also told Alabama to go fuck themselves on their redistricting shenanigans.
tl;dr: Wallace ruled this way on purpose to fuck Trump.
Everything you say would also be the case if she hadn't come up with the bullshit about not applying to the presidency. That was simply about keeping the maga crosshairs off of her.
Clarence Thomas seems to like Trump just fine; he and his wife were being very shady after the 2020 election.
The idea that this court is "not partisan" is frankly one of the most naïve things I've heard in a long time.
Now SCOTUS cannot disregard the fact that Trump engaged in insurrection.
They gonna tho.
Literally, this scotus makes up its own facts all the time to get to the outcome they want. Go look into the quiet prayer that football coach was doing (it wasn’t quiet).
They literally don’t give a shit anymore about any rule. Standing doesn’t matter, facts, anything. If they just think they need to stick their stupid fucking faces into something they just go with their major questions bullshit now.
Down with the god kings of the Supreme Court!
what has confused me about people saying this is, well, what exactly stops the supreme court from overriding him being declared factually guilty of that? Im guessing theres some sort of law to the effect that decisions like that arent what higher courts are trying to answer, but the supreme court also has no higher court to appeal a ruling to, so if they just decided to declare that this finding was incorrect anyway, what would happen?
The 14th is a reconstruction amendment btw, it wasn't drafted or ratified by the founders.
Great point. I don’t know why I said founders, I meant framers, but I’m leaving it so your correction makes sense.
I think what's important here is that the judge ruled that the orange cheeto comitted insurrection. I hope the supreme court does not strike down this part. If they don't, then they may proceed with judging the case based solely on that.
They're going to find some way to let him run. They'll overturn the trial judge in it being insurrection, they'll say the amendment needs legislation to back it up, they'll say say the word "the" doesn't really mean "the" like it did in 1492 or some such nonsense. It'll be 5-4 or 6-3, because the fascist right has the judiciary captured.
America entered the legal phase of fascism during Trumps presidency, and Biden and the democrats weren't able to correct it during this last best chance to do so. In my humble, ignorant, foreign opinion, this is it, this will be the next step in the long coming codification of fascist rule in America.
Good luck, hope I'm wrong.
'or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States'
well see, the thing is, the presidency is both civil and military... it doesn't say "and/or" so clearly it's an exclusive 'or' (aka xor) and exempt...
- the super ream court
( ╯︵╰)
Garland tried his best to bury it but the J6 Committee forced his hand.
Honestly the J6 Committee is one of the very few recent examples of thy government actually functioning.
I think Trump is useful to the conservative movement either way, but it's probably better for them if he's a martyr.
Nope, America entered the fascist era with Obama. No, no, I'm still talking about the GOP!!
Fuckers shut down the government TWICE just because they didn't like a black man as a president. And do you remember this one time when Obama was giving a speech and some Republican idiot shouted "you lie!"?
Those were omens for things to come.
My only hope is that, somehow, they have verifiable already ruled against Trump before in other cases and filings.
And also that maybe ruling for him with Biden still in office now would set precedent to potentially backfire on Republicans somehow.
Both are stretches.
So, how do you think the Court will justify keeping Trump on the ballot?
Trump hasn't been convicted of insurrection.
I keep seeing this one... Am I missing something, or didn't Colorado convict him of insurrection as part of their case? I thought that was the whole point.
But maybe I'm just trying to rationalize a group of people not acting rationally.
to me this is where it gets interesting. that the constitution left it to the states to 'remove the burden' of being labeled an insurrectionist to congress implies maybe they also decide who is an insurrectionist ... ie, maybe it only takes one state court to declare it, but congress to remove it?
in other words, the SC could say, 'colorados ruling stands becasue they have that right, if you dont like it speak to the congress who can remove the burden'
The insurrectionist ban is only for people who participated in the civil war
My guess is this one or close to it. It's going to be an originalist interpretation of something like the definition of "insurrectionist" or "armed" and include a phrase like "the founding fathers didn't envision...". The reasoning might be some bad esoteric case law from the 1800's that defines insurrectionists as carrying literal muskets and pitchforks therefore Trump is not one.
That and they may just stall for time until after the election and claim they couldn't interrupt the democratic process term limits. Either way, Trump's chosen judges are about to have their decisive moment.
My hope is that they just ban him because he no longer has leverage after appointing them, but I am not sure if that would be an even worse indictment of their suitability as Supreme Court judges...
It would be possibly the most egregious thing SCOTUS has done (and they've done some shit) if they use this argument. We have the records of the adoption of the 14th, its original wording specified only members of the Confederacy were barred, but they explicitly changed it to cover any act of insurrection. We also know that they considered the language of "any officer" to cover the presidency because someone asked that question, and it's in the minutes.
I think the most sound legal reasoning would be to say he hasn't actually been convicted of any charge that constitutes "insurrection". Conviction is how the government asserts and proves that something happened, and to skip this step opens our legal system for a whole lot of abuse. They're going to say that, if and when he is convicted, then he can be barred, but not before.
The people the this amendment was specifically targeting weren't convicted of anything.
But that district court judge, Sarah Wallace, ultimately ruled that Trump could remain on the ballot because she said it was not clear that the drafters or ratifiers of the 14th Amendment intended to cover the presidency in the insurrection clause.
If you participate in insurrection, you are not allowed to hold any office in the United States… except the highest apparently.
Clearly what they intended. /s
It was such a ridiculous ruling. We even have the literal discussions from congress when it passed. Someone asked what about president, and another senator replied hey look we said all offices, how much more clear could it be.
From the congressional record at that time:
"Why did you omit to exclude them?" asked Maryland Democratic Sen. Reverdy Johnson. [in reference to president and vice president]
Maine's Lot Morrill jumped in to clarify.
"Let me call the Senator's attention to the words 'or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States,'" Morrill said, ending the discussion on that point.
I wonder what our overly conservative, and therefore, illegitimate, "supreme" court will decide?
My guess is that they'll rule he doesn't qualify for being kicked off the ballot due to the 14th Amendment, but then they'll "balance" that ruling out by ruling against Trump in his "Presidents are criminally immune no matter what they do" case. As if they'd ever rule in favor of that theory with a Democrat in the White House.
If presidents are criminally immune, then Biden can be president forever. And he could order the execution of any supreme Court justice. They need to be careful in the ruling.
Biden rolling into the SC chambers with a Glock actually makes voting for him more palatable for me.
Lemme guess. It's gonna take 18 months?
I don’t know whether to be excited or worried.
Worried is a safe bet
what do you mean, clearly the US judicial system is fair and impartial /s
They aren't hearing the case until 2/8 but the deadline for ballot finalization is 1/5, today.
So, regardless of how they rule, Trump will be on the ballot for the 3/5 Republican primary.
And if they rule against him, any votes that were cast will be ineligible and won’t be counted. The same as if I had written in someone who was born outside the US, or was under 35 years old. My write-in vote would simply be discarded, because it isn’t for a valid candidate.
Yes. But, should they rule against trump there's no reason that Colorado's Secretary of State has to count any votes he gets.
Can’t we all chip in a bribe Clarence Thomas? Apparently it’s totally legal and has zero repercussions.
On what grounds would they even look at this case? There is no federally constituted right to be on ballots to begin with.
I'm sure the most accomplished legal minds in the country will judge this fairly, without bias, and entirely on the merits of the case itself
