Elie Mystal writing in The Nation had a recent analysis/opinion piece on this. It includes a citation of section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment:Colorado kicks Trump off the ballot
From the article itself:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Donald Trump engaged in insurrection. That’s not me saying it, or Jack Smith saying it; that’s what the first court to hear this case, the Colorado state court, ruled at trial a few weeks ago. The trial court found that Trump engaged in insurrection…
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If the US Supreme Court intervenes and overrules Colorado, not only will it be going against the plain text of the 14th Amendment; it will also be trampling over Colorado’s right to interpret its own state laws. As you may have heard, “states’ rights” is kind of a big thing in conservative circles. Remember, it’s conservatives who think states have the right to gerrymander away the voting power of racial minorities because of “states’ rights.” They think the states can limit voting hours and deny early voting because of “states’ rights.” In 2013, in Shelby County v. Holder, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the federal government can’t even use the 15th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act to stop the Confederate states from changing their voting laws back to Jim Crow procedures meant to disadvantage Black voters… because of “states’ rights.”
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There are many ways the conservatives can wriggle out of their own ideology now that their so-called logic no longer helps them. Perhaps they’ll read “convicted” of insurrection into the amendment, even though that word doesn’t exist in the text. Perhaps they’ll say that the case is not “ripe”—which in legalese means that the case is not ready for the court to make a ruling on—because it deals only with the primary ballots and not the general election ballots. Perhaps they’ll say we’re “too close” to an election to follow the rules (they’ve done that before).
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Trump’s lawyer argued, and the Supreme Court could agree, that Section 3 requires a specific act of Congress before it can be enforced. That might be a cute way for the court to stand by their man and let Trump get back on the ballot, while pretending that it’s all Congress’s fault.
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There is probably a universe out there where Trump is kicked off the ballot; it’s just unlikely that we’re lucky enough to live in that one.
Source (this link may not work for those who do not subscribe to The Nation. The cited article is dated December 20, 2023): https://www.thenation.com/article/pol ... rm=weekly
