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.”
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.
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.
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)
I always assumed that was the strategy. Trump has a huge handful of lawsuits in the pipeline. None of them will technically prevent him from holding office. This specific ruling will make it clear, “Yes, he is disqualified.”
I’m not confident it’s necessary, but I understand the legal argument that it should be more clear, which is what this does.
I’m not sure what you are saying. The supreme court is clearly not going to rule that he’s disqualified. Like the grandparent comment said - he’s not convicted, so he’ll stay on the ballots.
Right. But without this case, what happens when he is eventually convicted of insurrection?
We would have to go through all the legal arguments we’re going through now.
This case is being brought up now so that we already have the answer.
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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.
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.
I share your concerns friend.
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/
Ah. Well, good news then!
Yes, I was very very happy that day 🙂