SCOTUS Must Throw Out the Colorado Supreme Court's 14th Amendment Case Against Trump

The Colorado State Supreme Court doesn’t have probable cause to deny voters their right to vote for Trump.

If the Supreme Court fails to overturn the Colorado decision, what will prevent state legislatures in red states from disqualification of Biden for the allegations of bribery and misconduct. In turn, blue states could act likewise to Trump for his alleged crimes. We could wind up with more than half the states not permitting one or the other major party candidate on the ballot. That would make the 2024 Presidential election untenable. In other words, 1860 redux. For that reason, I believe the Supreme Court will override the Colorado ruling.

Everyone just seems so sure SCOTUS will strike down the Colorado decision. Don't be so sure.

In December 2020, SCOTUS failed to hear one of the most important cases ever presented to it, when 20 states sued a few closely contested states for changing their election laws unconstitutionally. Their inaction opened the door for all the madness consuming this nation and the world.

Many of us have little confidence in SCOTUS and for good reason.

IIRC, there is also a case from the 1800s that held that officers aren’t elected. The constitution (Art. 2, Sec. 2, clause 2) provides that the president appoints all officers, and he obviously doesn’t appoint himself, so he’s not an officer.

The “problem” is if they reverse on ONLY that ground, legally Trump wins of course, but does the insurrection finding stand in the court of public opinion? Do people care?

Well put, and along those lines I will toss in this excellent piece by Roger Kimball that was posted on FR the other day:

https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4205729/posts

It is not a misreading issue. clause has been modified via legislation.

https://heritagelib.org/amnesty-act-of-1872

Amnesty Act of 1872, May 22, 1872

The Amnesty Act of May 22, 1872 was a United States federal law which reversed most of the penalties imposed on former Confederates by the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the Act removed voting restrictions and office-holding disqualification against most of the secessionists who rebelled in the American Civil War, except for “senators and Representatives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses and officers in the judicial, military, and naval service of the United States, heads of Departments, and foreign ministers of the United States.”[1] The act was passed by the 42nd United States Congress and the original restrictive Act was passed by the United States Congress in May 1866The 1872 Act affected over 150,000 former Confederate troops who had taken part in the American Civil War.

You cited the original text of the law. It was changed over several decades to reduce its effect on the diminishing population of Confederates it targeted originally.

There is no longer any 'effect' to the law after the last change.

“Colorado Supreme Court”

Colofornia.

The Federalist Papers, in several places, makes the distinction between people elected to "offices" created by the Constitution and lesser "officers" appointed by the President to positions "created by law."

Federalist #67 (Alexander Hamilton):

The second clause of the second section of the second article empowers the President of the United States "to nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other OFFICERS of United States whose appointments are NOT in the Constitution OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR, and WHICH SHALL BE ESTABLISHED BY LAW.'' Immediately after this clause follows another in these words: "The President shall have power to fill up ?? VACANCIES that may happen DURING THE RECESS OF THE SENATE, by granting commissions which shall EXPIRE AT THE END OF THEIR NEXT SESSION.'' It is from this last provision that the pretended power of the President to fill vacancies in the Senate has been deduced. A slight attention to the connection of the clauses, and to the obvious meaning of the terms, will satisfy us that the deduction is not even colorable.
The first of these two clauses, it is clear, only provides a mode for appointing such officers, "whose appointments are NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR in the Constitution, and which SHALL BE ESTABLISHED BY LAW''; of course it cannot extend to the appointments of senators, whose appointments are OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR in the Constitution, and who are ESTABLISHED BY THE CONSTITUTION, and will not require a future establishment by law. This position will hardly be contested.
The last of these two clauses, it is equally clear, cannot be understood to comprehend the power of filling vacancies in the Senate, for the following reasons: First. The relation in which that clause stands to the other, which declares the general mode of appointing officers of the United States, denotes it to be nothing more than a supplement to the other, for the purpose of establishing an auxiliary method of appointment, in cases to which the general method was inadequate. The ordinary power of appointment is confined to the President and Senate JOINTLY, and can therefore only be exercised during the session of the Senate; but as it would have been improper to oblige this body to be continually in session for the appointment of officers and as vacancies might happen IN THEIR RECESS, which it might be necessary for the public service to fill without delay, the succeeding clause is evidently intended to authorize the President, SINGLY, to make temporary appointments "during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.''

Hamilton points out that the appointment of "officers" is meant to apply to positions not already established in the Constitution itself. In the case of the 14th amendment, Representatives and Senators are specifically mentioned (but not the President) because they stand apart from the more general "officers of the United States." From Hamilton's reasoning, if "officers" covered elected positions enumerated in the Constitution, then specifically mentioning them in 14A would be redundant.

Federalist #72 (Alexander Hamilton):

THE administration of government, in its largest sense, comprehends all the operations of the body politic, whether legislative, executive, or judiciary; but in its most usual, and perhaps its most precise signification, it is limited to executive details, and falls peculiarly within the province of the executive department. The actual conduct of foreign negotiations, the preparatory plans of finance, the application and disbursement of the public moneys in conformity to the general appropriations of the legislature, the arrangement of the army and navy, the directions of the operations of war, these, and other matters of a like nature, constitute what seems to be most properly understood by the administration of government. The persons, therefore, to whose immediate management these different matters are committed, ought to be considered as the assistants or deputies of the chief magistrate, and on this account, they ought to derive their offices from his appointment, at least from his nomination, and ought to be subject to his superintendence. This view of the subject will at once suggest to us the intimate connection between the duration of the executive magistrate in office and the stability of the system of administration. To reverse and undo what has been done by a predecessor, is very often considered by a successor as the best proof he can give of his own capacity and desert; and in addition to this propensity, where the alteration has been the result of public choice, the person substituted is warranted in supposing that the dismission of his predecessor has proceeded from a dislike to his measures; and that the less he resembles him, the more he will recommend himself to the favor of his constituents. These considerations, and the influence of personal confidences and attachments, would be likely to induce every new President to promote a change of men to fill the subordinate stations; and these causes together could not fail to occasion a disgraceful and ruinous mutability in the administration of the government.
With a positive duration of considerable extent, I connect the circumstance of re-eligibility. The first is necessary to give to the officer himself the inclination and the resolution to act his part well, and to the community time and leisure to observe the tendency of his measures, and thence to form an experimental estimate of their merits. The last is necessary to enable the people, when they see reason to approve of his conduct, to continue him in his station, in order to prolong the utility of his talents and virtues, and to secure to the government the advantage of permanency in a wise system of administration.

Here, Hamilton writes that the "officers" are intended to refer to subordinate positions within the Executive branch of government.

Since 14A calls out members of Congress, Electors to the Electoral College, and other "officers" of the United States, but leaves out any mention of the President, it must be assumed that the "other officers" is meant to cover only the lesser people who are appointed and confirmed to their offices.

-PJ

Did Trump’s lawyers request a SCOTUS ruling yet on this?