The US Supreme Court has just become the great arbiter of this year's US presidential elections, a role it has not assumed since 2001 when it decided to end the vote count in Florida in a decision that handed the White House to Republican George W Bush. This Friday, the case regarding the exclusion of former President Donald Trump from the Republican primaries of the Republican Party in Colorado has been admitted for processing due to his role in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. The case will be heard on February 8.
The passage of the Supreme Court opens the way to a ruling that will create a historical precedent and will mark the electoral campaign about to begin in the United States and that will culminate in the presidential elections in November. The highest court in the country will decide whether Trump can compete in the Colorado primary or, as the Colorado Supreme Court argued, his role in that assault makes him a participant in an insurrection and, therefore, disqualifies him as a candidate for the White House according to the amendment number 14 of the US Constitution.
On February 8, the nine Supreme Court justices will begin to hear the parties' arguments. The view will clash squarely with the development of the Republican primaries, which begin their cycle on the 15th with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire consultation on the 23rd. In February the electoral calendar foresees caucuses in Nevada.
Trump is the favorite by far among the Republican candidates for the White House. His most immediate rivals, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, are more than thirty percentage points behind in the polls.
The Supreme Court seems to want to move at full speed, given the importance of the case and its relevance to the development of the electoral process: the primaries in Colorado and Maine, the other state that has vetoed Trump as a candidate, will be held on March 5. The announcement that the Court will accept the case comes just two days after the former president's legal team filed an appeal against the Colorado court's decision.
That court had determined on December 19 that the 14th amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits those who have participated in a rebellion or insurrection from holding public office, applied to the former president for his participation in the events of January 6, 2021. , when a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to try to prevent the US Congress from formally ratifying Democrat Joe Biden's victory in the November 2020 elections. Trump continues to maintain even today that those elections were fraudulent.
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The third section of the amendment, ratified after the Civil War, stipulates that those who have sworn allegiance to the Constitution cannot hold official office if after their promise they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against it, or provided assistance or relief to the enemies of her.” The US Congress can lift the ban, but only if two-thirds of lawmakers vote in favor.
At the time, legislators approved this measure to prevent Confederates who had sworn to the Constitution and then taken up arms from holding positions of responsibility in the Government. But scholars consider that the amendment is applicable to later cases. But it has been applied in dribs and drabs: only twice since 1919.
“We have not reached these conclusions lightly,” argues the Colorado Supreme Court. “We are aware of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. Also that it is our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being carried away by the public's reaction to the decisions that the law requires us to make.”
Following the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court, on December 28, the State of Maine became the second to disqualify Trump as a candidate. In this case it was the territory's Secretary of State, Democrat Shenna Bellows – whose duties include the organization of the elections in this constituency – who decided that the former president was disqualified as a candidate. The real estate magnate's lawyers have also challenged this provision.
Another fifteen states, from Oregon to Virginia to New York, are also considering whether the former president's name can appear on the voting ballots.
In the American system, each State organizes and has its own rules when holding elections, even if they are national. This means that the decisions of Colorado and Maine only affect their respective territories.
But a decision by the Supreme Court, being a federal body, would have effect throughout the United States: hence its importance.
What the nine judges' decision will be is a mystery. Six are conservative, and three of them were appointed by Trump during his four-year term. But several of them belong to the “originalist” school, which maintains that the Constitution must be interpreted literally as written by its founders (an argument used to defend the Second Amendment and the right of individuals to bear arms).
It is a factor that can turn against the former president. Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace pointed out in a prior decisionrevoked by the State Supreme Court, that the amendment only mentions senators and congressmen, but not the specific position of the president, so this position is not included in the prohibitions.
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