Yielding to Temptation: Colorado’s Supreme Court Blocks Democracy to Bar Trump on the 2024 Ballot (JONATHAN TURLEY)

Below is my column in The Messenger on the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision disqualifying former President Donald Trump from the 2024 election. There are now over a dozen states considering similar demands from advocates to prevent voters from being able to vote for the current leading candidate for the presidency. In California, Lieutenant Gov. Eleni Kounalakis publicly called upon the Secretary of State to “explore every legal option” to follow the same path as Colorado. It is a temptation that is irresistible for Democratic politicians in a race to the bottom of our rage politics.

he Colorado Supreme Court has issued an unsigned opinion, making history in the most chilling way possible. A divided court barred Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 presidential ballot.

For months, advocates have been filing without success in various states, looking for some court to sign off on a dangerous, novel theory under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. They finally found four receptive jurists on one of the bluest state supreme courts in the land.

Even on a court composed entirely of justices appointed by Democratic governors, Colorado’s Supreme Court split 4-3 on the question. The majority admitted that this was a case “of first impression” and that there was “sparse” authority on the question. Yet, the lack of precedent or clarity did not deter these justices from making new law to block Trump from running. Indeed, the most controlling precedent appears to be what might be called the Wilde Doctrine.

In his novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde wrote that “the only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” The four Colorado justices just rid themselves of the ultimate temptation and, in so doing, put this country on one of the most dangerous paths in its history.

The court majority used a long-dormant provision in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — the “disqualification clause” — that was written after the Civil War to bar former Confederate members from serving in the U.S. Congress.

In December 1865 many in Washington were shocked to see Alexander Stephens, the Confederacy’s onetime vice president, waiting to take the same oath that he took before joining the Southern rebellion. Hundreds of thousands of Americans had just died after whole states seceded into their own separate nation with its own army, navy, foreign policy and currency. So Congress declared that it could bar those “who have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

January 6, 2021, was many things — and all of them bad. However, it was not an insurrection. I was critical of Trump’s speech to a mob of supporters that day, and I rejected his legal claims to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election in Congress. However, it was a protest that became a riot, not a rebellion.

Indeed, despite the unrelenting efforts of many in the media and Congress, a post-January 6 Harvard study found that most of the rioters were motivated by support for Trump or concerns about the election’s fairness, not by a desire to rebel.

Turley disappoints me. He starts with:

(1) dozen states considering similar demands

(2) makes history in chilling way

(3) finally found four receptive jurist

(4) lack of precedent or clarity didn’t deter the justices

(5) ... put this country on one of the most dangerous paths in history

(6) brief history of 14th amendment

(7) Jan 6 was many things, all of them bad

(8) much can be said of this decision but restraint not one of them

Where does he discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the court’s decision?

Here’s what another poster (whitney69) wrote. It is informative:

“For a justice to make a decision, there are certain requirements that must be met to try a person in a court action. Witnesses, documents, and the privilege of the opportunity of the accused being faced by his accusers. The judges cannot be accusers but are there to hear the case presented that never was and evaluate the evidence. The only evidence that was presented to the justices was heresay from media outlets that have the ability of absence of malice (the opportunity to lie without fault) and not proven or even displayed. That’s not a hearing, that’s a kangaroo court created for the purpose of not giving the accused any chance to be right or wrong. Justice? Not a chance. They’re no different than vigilantes with a rope.

The minute they added the words “legally convinced,” it went out the window. My opinion can be possibly based upon gut feeling. As a judge, sworn in, their opinion has to be based upon facts. That’s what they are paid and sworn in to do. That didn’t happen.”

Very pro forma process piece from Turley, one of these classic examples where he holds back because he fears angering his fellow Swamp rats.

Of the three worthwhile inferences Jon made, the first is the best, which tells you that he had one original idea he was willing to communicate and hid the rest...

"Even the Justice Department’s special counsel Jack Smith, who threw every possible charge at Trump in two indictments, did not believe he had sufficient basis to charge Trump with incitement or insurrection."
"The result is an opinion that lacks any limiting principles. It places the nation on a slippery slope where red and blue states could now engage in tit-for-tat disqualifications. According to the Colorado Supreme Court, those decisions do not need to be based on the specific comments made by figures like Trump. Instead, it ruled, courts can now include any statements made before or after a speech to establish a “true threat.”
"It was inevitable that the Trump-ballot challengers would find four jurists in one state willing to follow something like the Wilde Doctrine. However, it is also important to note that a series of Democratic jurists previously refused to do so in various cases. They did so not out of any affinity to Trump but out of their affinity to the Constitution."

This, remarkably, is not as good as the work I have done regarding the Colorado decision:

"Liberal courts are driven by their leftist clerks.
Liberals do not care one whit about jurisprudence or originalism or Constitutions -- in fact those very things drive their hatred, their animus.
Liberal courts only care about the outcome because that is all that matters to them. Period. Paragraph.
That Colorado decision was pre-ordained the moment the lower court issued 298 grafs of puerile rage from LGBTQlerks and a demented but determined libtard biotch who used a ballot-eligibility trial to attempt to kangaroo President Trump for "insurrection", which featured guest witness appearances (no, I'm not kidding) from people like Eric Swalwell.
No, this decision is because Obama's Army believes somehow that SCOTUS -- and particularly Judge Alito -- smacking down this rogue state court, and perhaps creating an omnibus ruling that removes much of this illegal lawfare against President Trump, somehow provides a winning #Narrative for The White Hospice. These are the meager gaslighting tropes escaping from the Choom Room.
Instead of TrumpII being about stopping the invasion, instead of breaking the chains on American energy independence, instead of actually leaving the chains of Earth and heading for Mars, now in return for the wrongs committed upon him, he has to include retribution.
SCOTUS, or more to the point Alito, now must consider a range of options:
Uphold the unconstitutional Colorado Supreme Court decision. Not happening.
Reverse and remand consistent with Judge Wallace's ruling. Less likely given her ruling 'on-a-technicality' was simply stinkbait primed to pass-the-buck to Colorado's Supreme Court; but not impossible -- and this is why her "initial ruling" has import, not just because it could be upheld by SCOTUS, but also because Alito could "reach in" and subtly advance arguments made by Trump's lawyers that were ignored by Wallace.
Alito, a brilliant jurist, is surely scanning the landscape and may decide to take apart the lawfare against President Trump one case at a time, butmay also have to limit the recourse in this instance to reverse and remand, in order to obtain the four other votes.
Finally, Alito has the curb-stomp option, overturning the Colorado Supreme Court decision, focusing on its glaring unconstitutionality in their foresaken attempt to create an illicit "Bill of Attainder" -- such legislation in the matter of electing a President wholly reserved for Congress, and even then, any such legislation presumed unconstitutional on its face.
Alito will likely draw from the constitutional arguments made by Trump's attorneys at the lower court level, perhaps even reference Colorado Supreme Court Justice Samour fairly incisive dissent, and his 5-4 decision (yes, Roberts will vote with the minorities), will pre-empt any ongoing or contemplated primary or general election state ballot challenges against President Trump."

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