WHAT’S NEXT FOR COLORADO CASE?
The Colorado Supreme Court, in a 4-3 ruling, said Trump is “disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution”.
Section Three of the 14th Amendment ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, bars anyone from holding public office if they engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” after once pledging to support and defend the Constitution.
The ruling, if it withstands Supreme Court review, would bar Trump from appearing on the ballot in the primary to be held in Colorado on Mar 5 to select the Republican Party’s nominee for the November 2024 election.
Colorado’s highest court issued a stay, or freeze, of its bombshell ruling until Jan 4 pending an expected appeal by Trump’s lawyers to the Supreme Court.
Steven Schwinn, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Illinois Chicago, said he expects the Supreme Court to intervene in a case he described as “uncharted territory.”
“The court needs to make a ruling so that Colorado and other states can decide whether they’re going to list Donald Trump on the ballot or not,” Schwinn said.
“The court’s going to have to act quickly on this and I expect that it will act quickly on this,” he said.
Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, noted that it is the first time that the 14th Amendment has been used to exclude a presidential candidate from the ballot.
Granting the Colorado case for review would force the Supreme Court to “step into the thorniest of political thickets,” Muller wrote on the Election Law Blog.
Source: CNA
