The United States Supreme Court began debating this Thursday whether Donald Trump should be banned from running in the November presidential election.
The nine justices must answer one question: can Trump’s name appear on the Republican presidential primary ballots in the state of Colorado due to his alleged role in the attack by his supporters on the Capitol on January 6, 2021?
Jonathan Mitchell, a former Texas attorney general representing Trump, opened the scheduled 80 minutes of oral arguments. Only Congress can disqualify a candidate, he said.
About twenty protesters, some with banners that read “Trump is a traitor” and “Trump out”they protested in front of the court.
The Colorado Supreme Court, citing the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ruled in December that Trump, the heavy favorite for the 2024 Republican nomination, must be excluded from the ballot for this reason.
Section 3 of the 14th Amendment prohibits any person from holding public office if he or she has participated in a “insurrection or rebellion” after having promised to defend Magna Carta.
The amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, was intended to prevent supporters of the slaveholding Confederacy from being elected to Congress or holding federal office.
Trump, 77, appealed to the Supreme Court to throw out the Colorado ruling and similar proposals in other states to keep him out of the elections.
“Colorado Supreme Court Decision Is Wrong and Should Be Overturned for Numerous Independent Reasons“, estimated Mitchell, who added that “would take away the vote from potentially tens of millions of Americans”.
The conservative-majority court, which includes three justices appointed by Trump, is reluctant to get involved in political issues, but this year it is forced to rule.
In addition to the Colorado case, the court could also accept an appeal by Trump against a lower court ruling that states that as a former president he does not enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution and can be tried on charges of conspiracy to alter the outcome of the election. of 2020.
“Atypical”
Steven Schwinn, professor of constitutional law at the University of Illinois, Chicago, estimates that any ruling will be interpreted by the population as “an interference in the elections”.
“If Trump is disqualified, Trump supporters will think it interferes in the election” and if not, his opponents will think the same, Schwinn said.
Trump’s lawyers insist that “The American people, not the courts or election officials, should choose the next president of the United States”.
“At least 60 state and federal courts across the country have refused to remove President Trump from the ballots.“, they say. “Colorado Supreme Court is the only outlier”.
According to them, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment can only be applied by “methods enacted by Congress” and not through state courts. Nor should it apply to Trump – they say – because he refers to “United States officials”, that is, appointed and non-elected positions.
Furthermore, they insist, the former president “did not ‘participate’ in anything that constituted ‘insurrection’”.
“There was no ‘insurrection’”they said. “The events of January 6 were not an ‘insurrection’, as they did not involve an organized attempt to overthrow or resist the United States government”.
Trump gave a fiery speech to thousands of supporters in Washington on Jan. 6 before they headed to the Capitol in an attempt to block Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s election victory.
The House of Representatives, with a Democratic majority, accused him of inciting an insurrection, but the Senate acquitted him.
Source: Gestion
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