Heads, we win, tails, you die

Created
Tue, 21/11/2023 - 02:30
Updated
Tue, 21/11/2023 - 02:30
Timidity and irresolution and menace After a Colorado court ruled against barring Donald Trump from the ballot there, I commented on the atmosphere of menace Trump has created around any attempts to hold him accountable before the law for any of his actions. This includes attempts to disqualify him from holding elected office via the 14th Amendment. I focused on the fact that three different judges had cited three different reasons for not giving Trump the boot. That’s not so say (and I did not mean to suggest) the rulings were in error. But I did not address what the ruling did or did not do for Trump cases on appeal. Kim Wehle does so this morning at The Bulwark. The 102-page ruling contains findings of fact that Colorado District Judge Sarah B. Wallace clearly wrote “with an expectation that judges at higher state courts and likely even the U.S. Supreme Court would wind up studying her analysis on an appeal petition,” Wehle writes. Notably: We’ve addressed the 14th Amendment’s Section 3 multiple times and Wehle does so again, in light of the Colorado ruling, but also summarizes where the other cases stand: There is a pattern in the reluctance of lower courts (or anyone in Congress or the elections machinery) to take a stand on Section 3. Brian Beutler chalks it up to (as I suggested) the “timidity and irresolution of the judiciary.” Wallace found “a (tortured) way to construe the 14th amendment that exempted Trump,” and thus “felt…