I think at the root of it all is that someone had the sense to see that this could be used against the democrats as well, and that democrat politicians could be kicked off the ballots in red states.
A ruling allowing that to stand could have come back and bit them big time.
A lot of the republican voters also don't have the stomach for active confrontation, and probably will not support any badass republican officials. Democrats also know this and use it to their advantage.
If any republican official decides to go rogue and get back at the dems, the entrenched RINO leadership of the party will quash their efforts in cooperation with the democrats.
Probably one of the reasons why the Bush clan and other assorted RINOs went after Ken Paxton, the super AG for Texas.
Letting the Colorado ruling stand would have Balkanized the states politically into pure, distilled Republican and Demonrats states, federal rule would be over and we would have slid into civil war.
“I think at the root of it all is that someone had the sense to see that this could be used against the democrats as well, and that democrat politicians could be kicked off the ballots in red states.”
“A ruling allowing that to stand could have come back and bit them big time.”
Very true, and it bites just as compellingly in the “presidential immunity” case that going to be argued in April regarding Pres. Trump’s Washington indictment for allegedly interfering with the 2020 election and the various related state indictments. Right now his lawyers are arguing for limited immunity that would essentially be an immunity circumscribed by the impeachment clauses of the Constitution so that he could only be prosecuted for alleged crimes that he had already been impeached for and convicted of. The idea that he’s prosecutable is based on the concept that former Presidents do not have the immunity for their official acts that current Presidents have. However, if SCOTUS adopts this theory then every former President will be exposed to such risk.
The two most recent Democrat former Presidents, Obama and Clinton, both have very substantial risks at state and Federal levels. The state levels ought to be the most concerning since they are risks of homicide prosecutions, Clinton for the Waco massacre, and Obama for the deaths of several American citizens, including Border Patrol agents, that resulted from illegally smuggled guns that were smuggled across the border as a part of Operation Fast and Furious, and were then returned to the United States and used to murder American citizens. In each case the murders occurred in the southern states where there is probably no statute of limitations and a likely inclination to prosecute. Hence, as soon as SCOTUS might decide that Trump can be persecuted by state as well as federal jurisdictions, Obama and Clinton are both going to have giant legal targets on their backs. Of course, the same would apply to Biden after he leaves office.
In other words, if this current orgy of prosecution works, its next targets will be Biden, Obama, and Clinton.