CO Courts Will Go Down in History as a True Threat to Democracy
It was only a few years ago that Colorado’s courts were scolded by the U.S. Supreme Court for their “hostility” to Christianity.
That came in the case in which the state persecuted baker Jack Phillips for his decision not to violate his Christian faith by promoting the LGBT lifestyle choices.
Now, after the Colorado Supreme Court, without charges or a conviction, declared President Donald Trump guilty of being an “insurrectionist,” it will be known for its “banana republic election interference.”
That’s according to legal expert Hans von Spakovsky.
The former Federal Election Commission member, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, said the court, in a 4-3 ruling, said Trump cannot be on the state’s GOP primary ballot.
Von Spakovsky explained, “This is a nakedly partisan, anti-democratic decision that ignores the law and prior precedent. Under the text and history of the 14th Amendment, as well as court precedent, Trump is not disqualified from running for office for numerous reasons.”
He then listed:
“First, Section 3 of the 14 Amendment applies only to individuals who were previously a ‘member of Congress,’ an ‘officer of the United States,’ or a state official. Individuals who are elected—such as the president and vice president—are not officers within the meaning of Section 3.”
Further, he pointed out the obvious: “No federal court has convicted Trump of engaging in ‘insurrection or rebellion.’ In fact, the Senate acquitted Trump of that charge in his second impeachment.”
Then he noted that experts believe Section 3 “doesn’t even exist anymore as a constitutional matter after the Amnesty Acts of 1872 and 1898—a matter completely ignored by the court today.”
Finally, he noted the courts already have said Section 3 “is not self-executing,” and Congress “never passed any federal law providing for enforcement, meaning that courts such as the Colorado Supreme Court have no legal authority to enforce Section 3.”
He called this situation a “badly judged, banana republic election interference.”
The Colorado judges actually ignored all of these factors, as von Spakovsky previously had delivered the details in a column online.
At the time, he condemned the “lawfare” that Democrats were using to get their political and social ideologies imposed on Americans.
He said then that multiple courts were considering the same dispute. In fact, other courts have rejected the Democrats’ agenda.
He warned that the judges hearing those disputes need to “understand that the text, history, and application of the 14th Amendment make it clear that they have no legal authority” to keep Trump from the ballot.
He pointed out that leftist judges, to reach the conclusion Colorado judges reached, have to ignore “the final sentence in Section 3, which is a unique provision found in no other amendment to the Constitution. It allows Congress to remove the disqualification clause ‘by a vote of two-thirds of each House.’”
He said, “Congress did just that with the Amnesty Act of 1872, stating that the ‘political disabilities’ found in Section 3 ‘are hereby removed from all persons whomsoever’ except for members of the 36th and 37th Congresses and certain other military and foreign officials.”
Then in 1898 Congress removed even those applications, he said.
