The Colorado Supreme Court's decision Tuesday to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the state's Republican primary ballot is an attack on the Constitution, several legal experts said.
In a 4-3 decisionthe court Found Trump was an ineligible candidate under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, which disqualifies officials who take an oath to the Constitution and then “engage in insurrection” from holding office. The decision is remarkably “undemocratic,” several experts noted.
Jonathan Turley, George Washington University Law Professor said in a Wednesday column for The Messenger that the opinion “lacks limiting principles.”
“It places the nation on a slippery slope where red and blue states could now participate in disqualifications,” he wrote. “According to the Colorado Supreme Court, these decisions should not be based on the specific comments made by figures like Trump. Instead, he ruled, courts can now include any statement made before or after a speech to establish a “real threat”.
He also called it “the most undemocratic opinion in decades.”
“What is particularly disturbing is that these four justices stripped millions of voters of their right to choose their preferred candidate in the name of democracy,” he wrote. “It's like burning down a house in the name of fire safety.”
Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus of law at Harvard University he called the decision is a “purely partisan ploy” that “clearly violates the express terms of the Constitution itself” on Fox News Wednesday
“Look, the 14th Amendment was intended to prevent people who take part in the Civil War from being executed, that's the purpose,” Dershowitz said. “If you look at the whole amendment, it talks about the Civil War, it talks about slavery. It is clearly in context, a unique one. It was not designed to supersede the impeachment provisions of the Constitution, as this court absurdly ruled.”
Rick Hasen, professor and election law expert at the University of California, Los Angeles he wrote in a Tuesday election law blog post that the decision is “a serious and careful opinion that reaches a reasonable conclusion,” but noted that the “legal odds” are with Trump on appeal to the Supreme Court .
“In the end, the legal issues are close, but the political ramifications of disqualification would be enormous,” he wrote. “Once again, the Supreme Court is being put at the center of a US presidential election. But unlike in 2000, the general political instability in the United States makes the situation much more precarious now.”
The Colorado Supreme Court has issued the most undemocratic opinion in decades. However, these judges prevented voters from voting for their preferred candidate in the name of democracy. It's like burning down a house in the name of fire safety. https://t.co/mmNsNPhSr2
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 20, 2023
The chairman of the watchdog, Tom Fitton said that “blatantly partisan opinion is a full-frontal attack on our constitutional republic that, if allowed to run, could wreck our elections.”
Missouri's Republican Attorney General, Andrew Bailey, called the decision “a violation of the rule of law and the character of our nation.”
“This undermines Missourians' votes for president,” he said said. “We are ready to defend the rule of law.”
Former Assistant US Attorney General Jeff Clark agreed with one of the dissenting justices writing that “keeping Trump out of the race violates the president's due process rights.”
“Furthermore, as I have written, President Trump was acquitted in his second impeachment and I do not believe that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies even to Trump, as the Colorado Lower Court correctly stated “, he wrote.
The Colorado Supreme Court stayed its decision until January 4, pending Trump's appeal to the Supreme Court.
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