Not satisfied to let the Supreme Court-enforced Democratic process play out, House Democrats are now preparing legislation to try and keep Trump off the ballot.
“Congress will have to try and act,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, in a comment to creepy deep state mouthpiece Axios (which swears the border is extra-secure!).
Raskin, a former member of the Jan. 6 select committee, said he is already crafting the bill, telling Axios, “I’m working on it – today.”
- Raskin pointed to legislation he introduced with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) in 2022 creating a pathway for the Justice Department to sue to keep candidates off the ballot under the 14th Amendment.
- “We are going to revise it in light of the Supreme Court’s decision,” Raskin said. –Axios
“I don’t have a lot of hope that Speaker [Mike] Johnson will allow us to bring enforcement legislation to the floor, but we have to try and do it,” said Raskin, who said he’ll ‘beseech’ Republicans to join the bill.
Very Democratic, Jamie.
Former President Trump has responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling keeping him on the ballot in Colorado (and therefore, everywhere else).
According to Trump, the decision was “very well crafted,” and “will go a long way toward bringing our country together.”
Trump also slammed Biden for ‘weaponizing’ prosecutors against him.
“President Biden… Fight your fight yourself. Don’t use prosecutors and judges to go after your opponent… our country is much bigger than that,” Trump said, speaking from Mar-a-Lago.
The decision comes after several states – kicked off by the Colorado Supreme Court – ruled that Trump was disqualified from appearing on ballots, citing an interpretation of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment provision which stipulates that candidates who engaged in an “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States – which Trump has not been charged with or convicted of – should be prevented from holding office.
Maine’s Democratic secretary of state made a similar decision days later, and a judge in Illinois recently issued a similar ruling to prevent his appearance on ballots, according to the Epoch Times.
This is the first time in US history that the US Supreme Court has considered section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The decision comes after a Sunday announcement that the Court would come to a decision today.
And of course, the left is now trying to discredit the Supreme Court despite the fact that this was a unanimous decision.
As the Epoch Times notes further, Lawyers for the former president asked the nine justices to reverse the Colorado court decision because only Congress can make a determination as who can become president.
The Colorado court’s decision was “the first time in the history of the United States that the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major-party presidential candidate,” his lawyers said, concluding that it “is not and cannot be correct.”
After the ruling, President Trump wrote on social media that he is “not an insurrectionist,” adding that President Joe Biden is one. He also noted that he told supporters to protest “peacefully and patriotically” during a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, before protesters and rioters entered the U.S. Capitol during the certification of electoral votes for the 2020 election, which forms the basis of the “insurrection” accusations against him.
Justices for the Colorado Supreme Court had argued that they believed President Trump engaged in an insurrection because of his activity before and on Jan. 6, 2021, during the breach of the U.S. Capitol building. The former president, however, was never charged or convicted of insurrection. He was charged by a federal special counsel in connection with the 2020 election, but not for insurrection, rebellion, or related charges.
“President Trump asks us to hold that Section Three disqualifies every oath-breaking insurrectionist except the most powerful one and that it bars oath-breakers from virtually every office, both state and federal, except the highest one in the land,” the majority for the Colorado Supreme Court wrote in its 4–3 ruling.
“Both results are inconsistent with the plain language and history of Section Three.”
Oral Arguments
During oral arguments in front of the justices in early February, at least six of the justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, who was nominated by President George W. Bush, appeared to be at least skeptical of some of the claims made by the lawyer representing several Colorado voters who brought the lawsuit against the Republican front-runner.
“It’ll come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election,” Chief Justice Roberts said, referring to the potential effect of the Colorado court’s ruling.
“That’s a pretty daunting consequence.”
Justice Clarence Thomas asked the lawyer, Jason Murray, why there weren’t many examples of individual states’ disqualifying candidates under the 14th Amendment after the Civil War.
“There were a plethora of confederates still around, there were any number of people who would continue to either run for state offices or national offices, so it would seem—that would suggest there would at least be a few examples of national candidates being disqualified,” Justice Thomas, a Bush appointee, said.
Justice Elena Kagan, considered a member of the court’s liberal wing, asked the attorney why one state would have power to determine which candidates should be on the ballot for a nationwide election.
“Why should a single state have the ability to make this determination not only for their own citizens but also for the nation?” she asked the attorney, adding the move would be “quite extraordinary.”
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Justice Barrett Explains the Message Americans Should Take Away From the Trump Ballot Ruling
As Spencer reported, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously 9-0 Monday morning that states cannot take former President Donald Trump off of the 2024 presidential ballot.
In her written opinion on the ruling, Justice Amy Coney Barrett explained the message she believes Americans should take away from the decision.
“In my judgment, this is not the time to amplify disagreement with stridency. The Court has settled a politically charged issue in the volatile season of a Presidential election. Particularly in this circumstance, writings on the Court should turn the national temperature down, not up,” Barrett wrote. “For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity: All nine Justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message Americans should take home.”
All Justices concurred that the states cannot create a “chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles.” A patchwork was rejected because it would “sever the direct link that the Framers found so critical between the National Government and the people of the United States.”
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