Insurrections Have Consequences. Colorado Can Block trump From the 2024 Ballot

This is breaking news:

 

BREAKING NEW: WE WON! The Colorado Supreme Court just ruled Donald Trump is disqualified from the ballot and from holding office under the 14th Amendment!

Much more coming soon.

— Citizens for Ethics (@CREWcrew) December 19, 2023

Let me find a more detailed news report. Ah here, NPR has it... no wait it's the Colorado regional version of NPR, Bente Birkeland reporting in:

In a landmark decision, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that former president Donald Trump is disqualified from appearing on the state’s primary ballot next year.

The Justices’ 4-3 ruling concludes that Trump engaged in an insurrection with his words and actions around the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and therefore cannot hold the nation’s highest office again. 

“We are also cognizant that we travel in uncharted territory,” wrote Colorado’s Supreme Court in its unsigned 213-page decision.

This is the first time a state’s high court has concluded the 14th Amendment’s Civil War-era Disqualification Clause applies to both the office of the presidency and the actions of the former president. Supreme Courts in Minnesota and Michigan dismissed similar complaints.

“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” wrote the Justices. “We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach...”

The ruling overturns the finding of a district court judge that the Disqualification Clause does not cover the office of the presidency. It also reaffirms that, under Colorado law, the court has jurisdiction to bar disqualified candidates from the Republican Party’s primary ballot. They also concluded that the judicial branch is empowered to apply the clause...

Earlier this year - as the January 6th rioters found themselves charged and convicted for their role in disrupting Congress' duty to confirm the 2020 Electoral votes - there were calls from various Constitutional legal experts that trump - now facing his own federal charges for his role in that insurrection - could and should be blocked from having his name on the primary (and general) election ballot. As I quoted experts like J. Michael Luttig and Laurence H. Tribe earlier:

Having thought long and deeply about the text, history, and purpose of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause for much of our professional careers, both of us concluded some years ago that, in fact, a conviction would be beside the point. The disqualification clause operates independently of any such criminal proceedings and, indeed, also independently of impeachment proceedings and of congressional legislation. The clause was designed to operate directly and immediately upon those who betray their oaths to the Constitution, whether by taking up arms to overturn our government or by waging war on our government by attempting to overturn a presidential election through a bloodless coup.

The former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and the resulting attack on the U.S. Capitol, place him squarely within the ambit of the disqualification clause, and he is therefore ineligible to serve as president ever again. The most pressing constitutional question facing our country at this moment, then, is whether we will abide by this clear command of the Fourteenth Amendment’s disqualification clause...

What happened in the Colorado matter was that the lower court judge ruled that trump did engage in an act of insurrection, but failed to accept that the Amendment's definition of "officer" did not apply to Presidents. The state's Supreme Court overruled that view, determining trump was an officer under the Constitution and thus can be barred. 

Either way, the courts are finding that trump's behavior that January 6th - and the months leading up to it - fit the definition of insurrection. This is something every state dealing with these filings - I need to find out how many more states have ballot challenges - because if enough of them do block trump from even the GOP primaries, we're talking massive chaos in the 2024 election cycle.

Consider the situation if trump's name stays on in various Red states, but those tend to be the smaller states with fewer primary delegates at play. Considering the nature of the courts in Texas and Florida I doubt they will kick trump off the ballots, but big states like California, Illinois, and New York could. We could be talking about a delegate split between trump and whomever is left standing next year - it's looking like Nikki Haley, with half everybody else dropped out save for Christie, Ramsaway, and DeSantis (although he's so doomed he might not even stay in before New Hampshire) - to where neither have enough to outright win the first ballot. Chaos would be an understatement.

Consider also the wrath trump and his handlers will invoke if he's officially blocked off enough primary ballots to doom his re-election efforts to avoid criminal trials starting next year. The MAGA crowd are already primed for violence. If trump is convinced he can't regain the safety of high office through election, don't be surprised if he tries to avoid his legal woes by inciting secession or getting his congressional allies to stage some coup (even more than the failing impeachment scheme they're trying to inflict on Biden).

These are unprecedented days. All of it due to a rabid Far Right voting base that chose a crooked con artist to lead them, while the rest of the nation tries to get the legal system to establish some form of sanity and accountability to the Constitution our elected officials and officers of the law are sworn to uphold.

Hold onto your hats. The crazy train is speeding up as we head into 2024.