(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Do 14th Amendment solutions suspend belief because... terms of art (and language) [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-21 Considering that we are only discovering the actual prior planning of the J6 insurrection, legal textualism and originalism may come into play, as well as general prohibitions of insurrection. If Trump seizes power again he has already promised revanchism up to and including capital punishment to those who disagree with his system of beliefs. Language operates as self-enforcing by its very performative utterance much like the thorny issues of the rule of law as code. At some moment, laws reconcile themselves in reality. The reality is that Trump has not (yet) been charged with insurrection, much less convicted of such a crime (unlike many others), and perhaps the Colorado state supreme court has no jurisdiction to make such a determination. SCOTUS will out. The case was filed by six Republicans, and the Colorado Supreme Court cited a previous ruling by Justice Gorsuch in their decision. In an earlier phase of the Colorado case, a lower court judge had ruled that the clause does not cover presidents and so rejected removing Mr. Trump from the ballot. In finding the opposite, the Colorado Supreme Court also cited evidence of people in the immediate post-Civil War era discussing the president as an officer of the government, while focusing on ordinary use of the term rather than treating it as a term of art. The Colorado Supreme Court’s four-justice majority found that the (J6) events were an insurrection, and that issue was not the basis of any of the three dissents. The lower-court judge who had rejected the lawsuit on the grounds that the president is not an “officer of the United States” had nevertheless found that the events of Jan. 6 constituted an insurrection. [...] And in September 2022, a state judge in New Mexico ordered Couy Griffin, a commissioner in New Mexico’s Otero County, removed from office under the clause. Mr. Griffin had been convicted of trespassing for breaching the Capitol as part of the mob. The judge ruled that the events surrounding the Jan. 6 riot counted as an insurrection and that Mr. Griffin’s role in the matter rendered him “constitutionally disqualified from serving.” www.nytimes.com/... x WATCH: @ElieNYC on why it was no accident the Colorado Supreme Court directly quoted Justice Neil Gorsuch in their decision to disqualify Trump from the 2024 ballot. pic.twitter.com/Z3GGNPb2pc — All In with Chris Hayes (@allinwithchris) December 20, 2023 In a historic decision Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court barred Donald Trump from running in the state’s presidential primary after determining that he had engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. decision marked the first time a court has ruled to keep a presidential candidate off the ballot under an 1868 provision of the Constitution that bars insurrectionists from holding office. The ruling comes as courts in other states consider similar cases. All seven justices on the Colorado Supreme Court were initially appointed by Democratic governors. The 4-to-3marked the first time a court has ruled to keep a presidential candidate off the ballot under an 1868 provision of the Constitution that bars insurrectionists from holding office. The ruling comes as courts in other states consider similar cases. All seven justices on the Colorado Supreme Court were initially appointed by Democratic governors. If other states reach the same conclusion, Trump would have a difficult — if not impossible — time securing the Republican nomination and winning in November. [...] In the short term, the Colorado ruling could influence courts and election officials in other states, he said. Other states have not taken such a step so far but may be willing to do so now that Colorado has acted, he said. But whatever the Court decides, the American electorate now has a new fact before it: again, from The New York Times: “A state Supreme Court has found that Donald Trump engaged in an insurrection in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election by inciting a violent mob to attack the Capitol and is therefore disqualified from serving again as president.” Regardless of how this section of the Constitution is ultimately interpreted and applied, “Shouldn’t both major parties insist on presidential candidates for whom such questions are not even remotely at issue?” www.washingtonpost.com/... x "The opinion of the Colorado Supreme Court was a masterful decision of constitutional law..." Former U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Michael Luttig on the Colorado court ruling kicking Trump off the state’s primary ballot. pic.twitter.com/fJG8U8e6ie — 11th Hour (@11thHour) December 20, 2023 The notion that because the political branches or even the voters caught up in the heat of temporary passions have declined to stop a tyrant, the courts should as a result step aside ignores the fundamental genius and design of the system the Founders built: which is one of overlapping checks against tyranny. The Colorado case is a feature, not a bug, and the Court upholding the Colorado Supreme Court decision, even in the face of extreme political pressure to do otherwise, would be the greatest vindication of the American Constitutional system and the founders’ invention. If one believes, as the Court majority does, that the Framers were indeed inspired, this is their chance to show fealty to that design. Not when it’s easy, but precisely when the Founders hoped they would in providing them life tenure: when it’s hard. protectdemocracy.org/... x Excellent essay by @samuelmoyn on how the Colorado decision disqualifying Trump is antidemocratic, short-sighted, and destructive—and evades a confrontation with the Constitution's antidemocratic structure.https://t.co/fOr1n20ETo — Doug Henwood (@DougHenwood) December 20, 2023 [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/12/21/2213001/-Do-14th-Amendment-solutions-suspend-belief-because-terms-of-art-and-language?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/