If Democrats get to decide who competes in Republican primaries, do Republicans get to decide who competes in Democrat primaries? Or is this another one of those “the rules only apply when they favor our team” things?
The Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered former President Donald Trump to be barred from the state’s 2024 presidential ballot under a Civil War-era insurrection clause, in a historic ruling certain to be promptly appealed to the nation’s highest court…
In the court’s 4-3 decision, Justices Monica Márquez, William Hood, Richard Gabriel and Melissa Hart made up the majority, while Chief Justice Brian Boatright and Justices Carlos Samour and Maria Berkenkotter dissented. All seven justices on the state Supreme Court were appointed by Democratic governors.
The case is headed right to the Supreme Court with the intended aim of further poisoning the process.
So let’s play this game.
The disqualification clause is a Civil War relic which, like a lot of unconstitutional measures from that area, is a disaster that we mostly just ignored. It’s open-ended enough that it can be applied widely, much like the Insurrection Act which should have been, but was not invoked in response to the BLM riots. This means that Democrats can apply it to Trump and Republicans can apply it to… anyone who supports riots and opposition to the Constitution or the United States government.
Take it from the Colorado justices.
“Section Three does not determine who decides whether the disqualification has attached in the first place” and “the Colorado legislature has established a process—a court proceeding pursuant to section 1-1-113—to make the determination whether a candidate is qualified to be placed on the presidential 60 primary ballot. And, for the reasons we have already explained, that process is sufficient to permit a judicial determination of whether Section Three disqualification has attached to a particular individual.”
If Democrat state courts and legislatures can prevent Republicans from appearing on the ballot, Republican legislatures and courts can prevent Democrats from appearing on the ballot.
Colorado Dems somehow think this wouldn’t possibly apply to them. Why not?
Any supporter of BLM can be classified by state legislatures as an insurrectionist and then blocked from the ballot. That includes Biden and Kamala.
In, say Georgia, it would include Senators Warnock and Ossoff.
Now this ruling won’t stand, but it would be more instructive for Republican states to start putting the wheels into motion for why this is a terrible idea and why leftists should curse the day they ever thought of it, than relying on a Supreme Court whose only reliable conservatives are two men in their seventies to bail out the rule of law.
Tell the mob that, sorry folks, your own justices have determined that any state legislature can decide who is disqualified for federal office. And insurrectionists and their supporters who “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” do not qualify.
https://www.frontpagemag.com/after-colorado-ruling-should-gop-states-bar-biden-from-ballot/