Could bombshell Colorado ruling thwart Trump’s presidential run?

WASHINGTON | Xinhua |  The bombshell Colorado ruling begs the question of whether former U.S. President Donald Trump’s presidential ambitions will be thwarted.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of the state of Colorado — all seven of its justices appointed by Democratic governors — banned Trump, a Republican, from running in the state’s presidential primary in a divided 4-3 vote.

The court maintained that Trump had engaged in an “insurrection” on Jan. 6, 2021, when some Trump supporters entered the U.S. Capitol building in what Democrats said was an attempt to disrupt the certification process for the 2020 presidential election.

Democrats held that Trump’s supporters — at the behest of Trump — engaged in the “insurrection” in a bid to disrupt the election process, branding Trump and his supporters as “election deniers.”

Republicans contended that Jan. 6 was simply a protest that got out of hand. They acknowledged that some participants did engage in rioting, but argued that the event of that day fell far short of the type of attack that well-armed and highly-trained terrorists or militia members would launch.

The decision was the first time that a court banned a presidential candidate from appearing on the ballot. The court cited an 1868 constitutional provision that prohibits anyone who engages in an act of insurrection from running for political office.

The court’s decision could trigger a ripple effect in which other Democratic-dominated state supreme courts hand down similar rulings.

RULING TO BE OVERTURNED?

The Trump campaign said it will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ruling, which will be placed on hold until Jan. 4. The U.S. Supreme Court has a 6-to-3 conservative majority, with three justices appointed by Trump.

“Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against (former) President Trump,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, in a statement, calling the ruling “completely flawed.”

Some experts doubted that the ruling would hold water and believe the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn the court’s decision.

“I note this significant problem with Colorado’s Supreme Court’s ruling: while all of us who viewed Trump’s words and activities that day know damn well that he was behind this effort to disrupt the electoral vote count, he has not yet been found guilty in any legal procedure regarding this,” Greg Cusack, a former member of the Iowa House of Representatives, told Xinhua.

“Accordingly, I suspect the Supreme Court will likely find that absent such a legal finding — as through a trial conviction — neither courts nor state officials can legitimately deny Trump a place on the ballot,” Cusack said.

“I don’t see any way the Supreme Court doesn’t review this case,” Christopher Galdieri, a political science professor at Saint Anselm College in the northeastern state of New Hampshire, told Xinhua. “I also think it’s very likely this Supreme Court overturns this ruling.”

“I will lay odds that the (U.S.) Supreme Court will accept the case — 55 to 45. I won’t lay odds yet about how they would decide the case,” Clay Ramsay, a researcher at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, told Xinhua.

POLITICAL BACKLASH

Republicans accused Democrats of using the Colorado court as a political weapon at a time when U.S. President Joe Biden’s polling stood at a low point.

Meanwhile, the Republican presidential race has been dominated by Trump, who is only bolstered among his voting base by the four criminal indictments he faces, prompting several other candidates to drop out of the race.

Some maintained that Colorado’s court ruling could galvanize those who disagree with the court’s actions.

“That appears to be happening already. Trump’s rivals for the GOP nomination are falling in line behind him and condemning the decision, and it plays right into Trump’s depiction of himself as a victim of sinister forces,” Galdieri said.

Even his main rivals, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, suggested that the ruling was an abuse of judicial power.

“The optics of the decision before any court has ruled on his indictments just feeds the Trump persecution complex,” Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis, a veteran presidential campaign aide, told NBC News. “And unfathomable as it may sound to Democrats, (this) will likely strengthen him.”

Some pointed out that those who disagree with the court’s decision can also simply write in Trump’s name on their ballots — voters are always provided with space to write in a candidate of their choice — and their votes will be counted.

“I don’t see how anything in the Colorado court’s decision will stop that. Those who disagree with the decision will indeed do write-ins,” Ramsay said.

Meanwhile, Ramsay believes the decision will galvanize both sides in Colorado, not just those who disagree with the court’s decision. ■