OPINION:
Chief Justice John Roberts is well known for crafting decisions with an eye to public perception. That could play to the favor of former President Donald Trump as the true battle for his political future — and his freedom — begins Thursday.
The U.S. Supreme Court will listen as lawyers articulate the reasons why Mr. Trump ought to be allowed, or forbidden, to appear on the March 5 GOP presidential primary ballot in Colorado. In one respect, it’s an academic question. The ballots have already been printed, and they bear Mr. Trump’s name.
What does matter are the words Mr. Roberts and his eight colleagues use for the ruling that will guide the rest of the states on this question going forward. The precedent set will determine whether incumbent political parties are allowed to delete opposition party names from this ballot and future ones.
That such a question is even being posed in the nation’s highest court illustrates the precarious state of our republic. The Colorado Supreme Court, which is made up exclusively of justices appointed by Democrats, forced the issue when it decided Mr. Trump couldn’t be on the ballot because, in their opinion, he engaged in insurrection disqualifying him from holding office under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Thursday’s discussion will likely veer into a dry debate over the nuances of this post-Civil War provision, which was written to keep Confederate rebels from serving in Congress or being appointed by the president to federal positions. There are strong arguments that this was never meant to apply to the president himself.
The back-and-forth among attorneys may also touch on the assertion that the three-hour march of rowdy but unarmed protesters through the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was an insurrection. In using that term, the authors of the 14th Amendment had in mind acts undertaken to perpetuate a brutal, four-year conflict that claimed more than 600,000 lives.
Over the years, left-wing activists have shot up the Capitol and set off bombs, doing far more damage in the name of their political agenda than what happened on Jan. 6. And even those assaults hardly qualify as insurrection. It’s dangerous to cheapen the term in the manner that some Democrats suggest.
Mr. Trump’s legal team pointed out in a Monday filing that the broad interpretation being advanced to kick this former president off the ballot would also “allow the courts to eject a sitting president from office, apart from the impeachment process, if a court independently determines that he ‘engaged in insurrection’ against the Constitution, even if Congress refuses to impeach and convict on that ground.”
Therein lies the threat to the democratic process the Constitution is meant to safeguard. If judges in a battleground state are allowed to tip the scales in the Electoral College count by booting a candidate from the ballot, or to remove an elected president from the Oval Office, a handful of robed individuals will have assumed a power that rightly belongs in the hands of voters or their elected representatives. That’s oligarchy, not democracy.
Mr. Roberts ought to realize that history will not look kindly on anything but a swift and unanimous decision striking down the Colorado court’s ill-conceived and partisan ploy.
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