Like so many troubles, the legal cases dogging Donald Trump come not singly but in battalions. News of the bombshell ruling by the Colorado supreme court on Tuesday – barring him from the state’s 2024 presidential ballot under the US constitution’s insurrection clause – soon jostled for space with the latest wrangles over his indictment by the special counsel Jack Smith for attempting to overturn the last election.
Until this year, no president or former president had ever been indicted. Mr Trump now faces 91 felony counts. But he also faces multiple cases directly challenging his candidacy under section 3 of the 14th amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding office. The Colorado challenge is not only the first to be upheld against Mr Trump, after attempts in other states failed, but it is the first time that the clause has been used against a presidential candidate since its inception in the wake of the civil war. While Mr Trump does not need Colorado, a Democratic state, the case may encourage those bringing suits elsewhere.
His lawyers are appealing to the US supreme court – heavily conservative-dominated and containing three Trump-appointed justices. Matters in dispute include whether the clause applies to the presidency, whether the events of January 6 amounted to an insurrection and whether Mr Trump himself committed insurrection. Charges of insurrection are rare and hard to prove; those who stormed the Capitol have been tried for other offences. Mr Smith has not attempted to bring such a charge as part of his case. While Mr Trump was accused of incitement to insurrection in his second impeachment trial, he was acquitted when the vote to impeach fell short of the required two-thirds majority. He was not charged with insurrection itself.
The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington – which brought the Colorado suit on behalf of Republican and independent voters – is correct to point out that the constitution bars those who attack democracy from serving in government. That is hardly an unreasonable standard. Though voters should hardly need reminding, the last three years have been turbulent, and the case does also put the events of January 6, and by extension Mr Trump’s disdain for the will of the people, back into the spotlight. A man who may very well return to the presidency weaponised it against democracy itself.
However, the case comes at a significant price. Some warn that the clause could be much more widely invoked against other candidates in future. But the most immediate consequence is that it once again fires up the former president’s base. Mr Trump is portraying it as another illegitimate act of persecution, part of the fictional witch-hunt against him – because he dares to speak for his supporters. Colorado’s supreme court justices were all appointed by Democrat governors (though the chief justice is a Republican and three of the other six registered as unaffiliated). A fundraising email from his campaign falsely and hypocritically declared: “This is how dictatorships are born.”
Victory in November’s polls may not be enough to return Joe Biden to the White House: Mr Trump will fight defeat by any and every means. His backers will seek to bend the law to their will. Yet ultimately, he is a political phenomenon, and truly vanquishing him will require convincing sufficient voters, not a handful of justices. He must be beaten at the ballot box again.
