The trial over an effort in Minnesota to keep former President Donald Trump off of the 2024 ballot began Thursday at the state Supreme Court as a similar case continued in Colorado.
The lawsuits in both states allege Trump should be barred from the 2024 ballot for his conduct leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. They argue Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says no one who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after swearing an oath to support and defend the Constitution can hold office.
A group of Minnesota voters, represented by the election reform group Free Speech for People, sued in September to remove Trump from the state ballot under the 14th Amendment provision. The petitioners include former Minnesota Secretary of State Joan Growe and former state Supreme Court Justice Paul H. Anderson.
While the court has its issues, it doesn’t seem to care to side particularly with Trump. They’ve had a few opportunities and have so far mostly sided against or at least failed to side with Trump in matters that either made it that far or tried to make it that far.
And why would they - if you let someone like Trump off the leash, he would disband the SCOTUS. (To say that another way: You can’t weild supreme executive power with some watery tart out there having the final say.)
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This is the one part about lifetime appointments… They don’t need to be loyal to Trump the second after they’re appointed. They don’t need to be loyal to anyone except their own judgement on the issues and Congress (which can in theory remove them if they have bad behavior).
They really don’t have any reason to not throw Trump to the wolves if the legal argument stacks up, unless there’s some other kick back going on behind the scenes, or they personally are a huge fan of Trump… Which maybe his own appointments are, at least most of them, but I don’t think the entire conservative block will join those guys and may very well side with the liberal block.
Still, I’m not going to hold my breath, and I fear the implications of this trial either way. The cleanest thing to do would be to just not vote for Trump and beat him in the ballot box. This feels both appropriate and underhanded in a way that might result in violence from the right… But maybe that’s just where we’re at.