From WaPo:
Donald Trump urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to ensure his name can appear on election ballots nationwide, warning of “chaos and bedlam” if the justices do not reverse Colorado’s top court, which disqualified the former president because of his actions on and leading up to Jan. 6, 2021.
This is one of those head feint arguments, unworthy of the lawyers filing it. While domestic tranquility is certainly a responsibility of government, including the judiciary, it is necessary to ask whether it is wise to be persuaded by such a claim, a claim that has no limit on the number of times it may be used, nor by whom[1]. For example, the Democrats may claim bedlam will attend the next culture war decision[2] by SCOTUS if the decision is unfavorable to the Democrats. Is this desirable? Does SCOTUS have to evaluate every decision with regards to how much violence it may provoke? Is this the purpose of the police, to become targets of those unhappy with SCOTUS decisions?
Second, it is a speculative claim. Implicitly, it threatens to bring the violence of the January 6th Insurrection to SCOTUS; yet, Mr. Trump has implored his followers to appear at judicial and other events to show their support, but his followers have made pitiful showings at those events. This weakens, quite severely, the argument that bedlam will occur. It may be what Mr. Trump wishes would occur, but his wishes translate poorly to reality, as those who followed his Administration’s actions are aware.
Another defense argument looks superficially persuasive, but, to this non-lawyer eye, ends up not:
The efforts to disqualify the leading Republican primary contender in the 2024 election, his lawyer Jonathan Mitchell wrote, “threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans” and “promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead.”
Consider this: If I had a 15 year old supergenius prodigy nephew or niece, I could not vote for them, either. Am I unjustifiably disenfranchised because the Constitution specifies a lower age limit on those who would serve as President?
No.
The Constitution is, to a large degree, the defining document of our democracy. We’ve put as much wisdom as we can into it, acknowledging our limitations at the same time through the Amendment process. If someone is too young to have acquired the wisdom that comes, to some, with age, then they are disallowed. Under the same rubric, banning people who’ve betrayed a sworn public office is a permissible disenfranchisement because those who wrote that Amendment to the Constitution foresaw such would-be office-holders not as well-meaning citizens who would do their best, but as those who would, again, and in all probability, betray their office in pursuit of their self-interest, which is a violation of the public servant’s remit.
This, then, and in some conflict with Mr. Trump’s claim #2, above, with regard to bringing January 6th violence to SCOTUS, leaves the Court with the problem of deciding if the Colorado Supreme Court is correct in seeing Mr. Trump as guilty of insurrection for trying to overturn the decision of the people, especially through force.
1 With the trivial exception of pacifists, of course.
2 Culture war decisions include such topics as abortion, funding of religious schools, charter schools, various gender rights and restrictions, etc.
