https://joycevance.substack.com/p/the-week-ahead-99a?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=607357&post_id=141309520&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=zv1g&utm_medium=email
This week, with oral argument scheduled before the Supreme Court on Thursday, we’ll be focusing on the litigation over the 14th Amendment, and whether the state of Colorado can remove Donald Trump from the ballot in that state. An audio feed of the argument will be live-streamed on the Court's website. The Court also posts the audio later in the day and makes transcripts available that afternoon.
Briefing isn’t quite over in the case. Trump’s reply brief is due by 5 p.m. Friday. Since he’s the petitioner, the party seeking to reverse the lower court ruling against him, he gets the closing brief. On Friday, the Court established the rules for oral argument.
We’ve addressed the substance of the arguments being made that under the 14th Amendment, Trump can be excluded from the state’s ballot because he engaged in insurrection after taking an oath to uphold the Constitution previously. There’s a good summary here. I continue to believe that what I wrote back in December of 2023 is where the Court will end up, even though distinguished conservative legal luminaries like former Fourth Circuit Judge Michael Luttig and George Conway have advocated for the 14 Amendment’s application here. My sense remains: “The courts’ job here is to determine the outcome based on the law. Whether they will stay in that lane is anyone’s guess right now. Based strictly on the language of the 14th Amendment, Trump looks ineligible. But here’s the tension I started by referencing: some of the justices may believe it would be better for the country to allow voters to reject Trump at the polls because ‘that’s how a democracy is supposed to work.’ It seems likely to me that they’ll look for a procedural way out of removing him from ballots across the country.”
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