River News: Our View

Nobody could have delivered Donald Trump a better Christmas and New Year’s gift than the Colorado Supreme Court, which has ruled 4-3 that the former president cannot appear on Colorado ballots in 2024.

It’s an absurd ruling, of course, that should be laughed out of the U.S. Supreme Court. Even prominent Democrats are calling for a quick and unanimous rejection from the justices. While they may secretly wish in their inner most desires to have Trump booted, they know the ruling would be political suicide if it stands.

There once was a Three Stooges short entitled Malice in the Palace. This was a remake, only now with four Stooges. It’s still aptly called Malice in the Palace, though, as “progressive” judges once again attempt to save democracy by slaying it.

There are multiple reasons why this is absurd, sliding down the broad philosophical scale to the specific details of constitutional law.

On the broadest philosophical level, except for the most heinous and rare acts, voters should be deciding who governs them, not judges or bureaucrats or military brass or anybody else.

Remember George Santos? He was wrongly kicked out of Congress before nary a conviction on any criminal charges. And kicked out by people who are collectively known as “The Swamp,” no less. It’s like a bunch of convicted murderers throwing another inmate out of the cell block because he doesn’t measure up to their moral standards.

We are not defending Mr. Santos, far from it. We think he’s unfit to serve as dog catcher, but, until he was convicted, it should have been a matter between Mr. Santos and his constituents. Even after a conviction, his ouster by people he doesn’t represent should have been one of vigorous debate.

Coming down a bit from the clouds, there is the very apt fact that Mr. Trump has never been charged, let alone convicted, of insurrection, the act the court says disqualifies him from the ballot. Even Jack Smith, the highly partisan leftist prosecutor, didn’t move to indict Mr. Trump under that section of the U.S. criminal code.

What is happening is that now judges are replacing the judgments of prosecutors and juries with their own opinions. Talk about being prosecutor, judge, and jury. It won’t take long to see what the ramifications of such a policy will be. 

For one thing, soon enough it will be tit for tat.

Already in Texas we have heard politicians talk of throwing President Biden off the ballot because, in their view, he has violated his constitutional duty to protect the southern border. Not to mention, as long as we are allowed to render judgments of treason in our own minds, allowing an invasion by millions of noncitizens could be argued to be nothing less than its own form of insurrection.

Who might tell the high court of Texas otherwise if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Colorado decision?

Might Biden be disqualified because he is not old enough? One might argue that these days he’s cognitively about the age of 10, having regressed in age like Benjamin Button to almost diaper-like years.

Disqualifying candidates from the ballot because of a loose interpretation of law — hey, we think he’s a traitor! In our opinion he’s mentally unfit to serve! — by a rogue cluster of the deep state is beyond the slippery slope.

Then, of course, there’s the law itself. 

We will simply reiterate what many constitutional scholars are writing this week, many of them Democrats. First, as Democrat Alan Dershowitz has written, the 14th Amendment explicitly provides that “The Congress shall have the power to enforce by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

In other words, only Congress, not the various states and not the Colorado Supreme Court, can enforce the amendment.

The truth is, the insurrection provision is a Civil War relic that was designed to keep former Confederate soldiers and officers out of Congress. It wasn’t meant to apply to the president — an early draft included the president but it was removed — because no one seriously thought a former Confederate could be elected president.

Even so, as was pointed out in The Wall Street Journal this week, the amendment was largely ignored after the war, especially after Ulysses Grant’s General Amnesty Act of 1872, and many former Confederates — including the vice president of the confederacy, Alexander Stephens — went on to serve in Congress. 

Then there is this: The 14th amendment does not preclude anyone guilty of insurrection from running for office, only from serving in office. This is clear not only from the language of the 14th amendment but from the 20th amendment: “If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified; and the Congress may by law provide for the case wherein neither a President elect nor a Vice President elect shall have qualified, declaring who shall then act as President, or the manner in which one who is to act shall be selected, and such person shall act accordingly until a President or Vice President shall have qualified.”

There are many ways a president-elect might not have qualified. One might be age. Another might be insurrection. In either case, a qualified vice president-elect would become president.

Then, in the former situation, a 34-year-old would come president turning 35. In the latter case, the constitution also gives Congress the ability to remove the disqualification. 

This has happened before, as John C. Harrison and Saikrishna Prakash wrote last week in the Wall Street Journal: “In July 1868, three weeks after the 14th Amendment’s ratification, South Carolina’s Legislature elected Franklin J. Moses Sr. as the state’s chief justice. He took office after Congress removed his disqualification in December.”

If Trump is somehow actually disqualified by Congress — and only Congress can do it — Congress could remove the disqualification as the responsibly democratic thing to doing if he has subsequently been elected by the people.

The totalitarian tactics that are being practiced by progressive courts lately — and the Wisconsin Supreme Court majority is no different with its latest ruling — are the latest farce in the subversion of constitutional due process and the very real subversion of democracy.

It will likely backfire among all but the Democratic base. The voting public is likely getting very tired of totalitarian tactics — mask and vaccine mandates, lockdowns, school and business closures, and now being told that progressives will decide for them which candidates they are allowed to vote for.

We don’t think Americans will ultimately embrace this type of “democracy.” The continual redefinition of democracy as those decisions made by elite globalists and as the state of affairs in which a collective and concentrated enterprise of wealth and power sits in judgment as a court of supreme being is the true insurrection in this country.

The sooner this cabal is vanquished, the better. And if the opportunity to do so by ballot isn’t allowed, other means must be taken up to ensure the survival of our liberty and constitutional rights.