Late Friday afternoon, Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace handed down her ruling in a case brought to challenge former President Donald Trump’s eligibility to hold office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The case had several questions to answer, including whether this clause applied to Trump, whether he’d “engaged” in an insurrection and whether, as the plaintiffs in the case argued, the Colorado secretary of state should be required to keep him off the ballot.
The answers Wallace came to were stacked against Trump, including that “Trump engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021 through incitement, and that the First Amendment does not protect Trump’s speech.” Wallace nevertheless decided Trump was eligible for the ballot anyway, finding that the drafters of the 14th Amendment did not include the president as an “officer” of the United States. The resulting victory for Trump, ordering an insurrectionist to be placed on the ballot, threatens the future of democracy on the most confounding of technicalities.
The resulting victory for Trump, ordering an insurrectionist to be placed on the ballot, threatens the future of democracy on the most confounding of technicalities.
The so-called insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment targets anyone who swore an oath “as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States.” If, after swearing that oath, that person “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” then they are barred from being “Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President,” or holding “any office, civil or military” at the state or federal levels. Both parts of that construction are important, as we’ll get into later.
In her ruling, Wallace walked through each of…
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