Four Democrat-appointed judges on the Colorado Supreme Court potentially opened a Pandora’s box with their Tuesday ruling barring former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot.
In the 4-3 ruling, the court cited Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which provides that anyone who has sworn an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” is ineligible for office.
It was adopted after the Civil War as a way to bar from office those who fought for or materially supported the Confederacy.
Republicans could make the same type of charge against President Joe Biden if the Democrats want to play this game.
They could point to Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution, which provides that the president shall “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
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Among other issues, Biden has, in effect, opened the southern border, leading to record illegal immigration into the U.S. and creating a grave security risk to the American people.
During fiscal year 2023, over 150 people on the terror watch list were apprehended at the border, on top of nearly 100 last year, The New York Times reported. Who knows how many made it through, given the flood of illegal migrants coming in?
That is to say nothing of the fentanyl pouring in, killing over 100,000 Americans a year.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested the chaos at the border could be grounds to remove Biden from his state’s 2024 ballot.
“Maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing 8 million people to cross the border since he’s been president, disrupting our state far more than anything anyone else has done in recent history,” Patrick told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Tuesday night.
Lt Gov Dan Patrick: We have a bill that will survive a Supreme Court challenge. pic.twitter.com/NzrKrozfTB
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) December 20, 2023
The lieutenant governor noted that 10,000-plus migrants are crossing the border every day. The number of people who have entered the country since Biden took office matches the entire population of the 12th-largest state, he said.
Patrick was discussing a bill signed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday making illegal immigration into Texas a violation of state law.
The four Colorado judges decided on their own that Trump engaged in insurrection and therefore under the U.S. Constitution should not appear on the state’s ballot.
Trump hasn’t been convicted or even charged with engaging in an “insurrection,” and there can be little doubt that special counsel Jack Smith would have brought such charges if he felt he could get a conviction.
It is a violation of federal law to engage in a rebellion or insurrection, with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
Smith’s election interference case alleges that Trump made false statements about the integrity of the 2020 election, which led to the Capitol incursion, as if the participants were not independent actors who could have had their own concerns about the election.
Recall that on Jan. 6, 2021, Trump encouraged his supporters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Doesn’t sound like a rebellion or insurrection to me.
Following the speech, Trump reiterated that he did not support violence.
Should red states take Biden off the ballot if Colorado’s ruling stands?
The vast majority of the protesters did just what he said. A relative few engaged in violence, but it should be noted that none of them fired any shots or has even been charged with taking a gun into the Capitol. None of the Jan. 6 defendants has been charged with insurrection, either.
The only shot fired that day was by Capitol Police officer Michael Byrd, who killed unarmed protester Ashli Babbitt.
By contrast, during the Civil War, millions of shots were fired and hundreds of thousands died. That was an insurrection against the federal government.
By the way, the last time Democratic officials decided to remove a Republican candidate from the presidential race was 1860, when Abraham Lincoln did not appear on 10 Southern state’s ballots.
Hopefully, the U.S. Supreme Court will make quick work of the Colorado case and rule that the people, not state officials, should decide who the next president will be.
