The Colorado Department of State warned that it would be “a matter for the Courts” if the state’s Republican party withdrew from or ignored the results of the primary.
The Colorado Department of State warned that it would be “a matter for the Courts” if the state’s Republican party withdrew from or ignored the results of the primary.
I get that you’re saying that it doesn’t feel fair to you, but that’s not how the law works. We might want the law to meet our sense of fair play, but there’s a ton of questions about balancing interests and precedent and so on.
The constitution itself places limitations on who can run for president. Is it fair that Arnold Schwarzenegger can’t run for office even if people want to vote for him? Maybe, but it’s illegal. Of a genius and charismatic 29 year old entrances the country with her brilliant rhetoric and would clear 90% of the popular vote and unite the nation, she also cannot become president. Is that fair to the electorate or our young genius? Maybe, maybe not. But it’s constitutional, and it’s the law.
CO law states that primary candidates must be people eligible for election to the office as judged by the state. This law has already been used to keep someone off the ballot. In a decision decided by Gorsuch himself, it was held that states have the right to make those calls.
In addition, the feds have almost always defaulted to allowing the states to decide how to conduct their elections and have stated that the feds have no constitutional authority to dictate how they conduct elections. This was how Bush v Gore was decided, along with the Boting Rights Act and other cases. Except in the case of violating something like equal protection, the feds stay out of it. Sitting members of the current court decided those cases.
So the Foinding Fathers didn’t think that just anyone should be allowed to run and the people should decide. Case law backs the idea that states can set their own rules. Trump is disqualified in the opinion of Colorado by virtue of having engaged in insurrection, and even the previous ruling, which would allow Trump on the ballot, did not challenge that finding. They just said that the law doesn’t apply to the president of the United States. It was a bad, bad ruling.
The sc can’t even grant a stay without overruling CO election law, which I believe says the ballots must be set by Jan 5, and the self-imposed stay already runs through the 4th.
Love your answer! But I’ll argue one thing.
Knowing the judgment would be appealed, no matter what, the lower court found Trump guilty of insurrection as a fact. On appeal, this fact cannot be argued or tested again. It stands.
Brillant legal maneuver. She put Trump in an inescapable box. And here we are.
I’m just joining in to say I’m worried the Supreme Court is going to ignore that fact and make a decision that favors the party. They’ll even find a way to spin it that the decision only applies to the GOP
Yeah. Law’s not like computer code. The details of all the rules and precedent are a critical side to be aware of, but judges also have to balance the letter of the law against the obvious justice of the situation all the time. If it were just as simple as researching and following the rules to the letter, it’d be a lot simpler profession. But if you’ve ever been in court for any length of time you’ll see (or at least my experience has been) that the judge generally has one eye always firmly fixed on what’s actually the right thing to do. Surprisingly so. Exercising, well, judgement on where to draw the line – not just throwing out the letter of the law based on “eh I don’t feel like this outcome is right” but being willing to depart from the letter of the law if something clearly wrong is happening in front of you – is one of the most critical parts of what your job is as a judge.
I’m not really experienced enough at law to come at it from any standpoint other than “what’s the right thing.” I’m aware that as a matter of law, she’s on completely solid ground. I think though that in the actual practice of how judges are supposed to do their jobs, those two things aren’t as widely separate from each other as they might seem.