The Colorado Supreme Court Cancels Elections in the Name of Democracy

Combining the legal reasoning of George Orwell and Bizarro, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that the government must prevent citizens from voting for the candidate of their choice in order to preserve democracy. This dangerous ruling, the culmination of years of Democratic planning to silence the voters’ voice in their own government, violates the law, the Bible, and historic principles from the American founding and the Great Awakening.

The justices — all of whom were appointed by Democrats — issued a 4-3 opinion on Tuesday barring former President Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s Republican primary ballot on the grounds that he incited an insurrection against the U.S. government on January 6, 2021. “President Trump did not merely incite the insurrection. Even when the siege on the Capitol was fully underway, he continued to support it,” the liberal justices asserted in their 133-page, unsigned opinion.

“A majority of the court holds that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under section 3 of the 14th Amendment,” the judicial activists concluded. The Trump campaign has promised a swift appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will have to act quickly: The deadline to print ballots for the March 5 primary is January 5.

Yet dismissing the case — and the dozens of identical, democracy-killing cases clogging dockets nationwide — should not require much deliberation. The Colorado Supreme Court decision is erroneous in nearly every particular.

Denying Due Process for Fun and Votes

First, there is the little matter of proving Trump’s guilt. The court can only disqualify the president from the ballot if he incited an insurrection, yet “[n]o federal court has convicted Trump of engaging in ‘insurrection or rebellion,’” noted former FEC Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky, now of the Heritage Foundation. “In fact, the Senate acquitted Trump of that charge in his second impeachment.”

Punishing Donald Trump in advance of a verdict denies him due process of the law, a cornerstone of our legal system. It also violates the Scriptures. Proverbs 17:15 says, “The Lord hates these two things: punishing the innocent and letting the guilty go free” — and under our system, everyone is innocent until proven guilty. The pre-conviction sentencing resembles a scene out of “Alice in Wonderland:”

“‘Consider your verdict,’ the King said to the jury.

“‘Not yet, not yet!’ the Rabbit hastily interrupted. ‘There’s a great deal to come before that!’

“‘Call the first witness,’ said the King.”

Second, should he ever stand trial, it will become obvious that former President Trump’s actions on January 6 did not meet the legal definition of incitement (which, though never quoted, seems germane to legal proceedings). U.S. law (18 U.S. Code § 2102) defines incitement as “urging or instigating other persons to riot.” In fact, Trump told the crowd to “peacefully and patriotically make [their] voices heard” and, after violence broke out, recorded a video asking the rioters to go home. The law adds that incitement cannot include “the mere oral or written (1) advocacy of ideas or (2) expression of belief, not involving advocacy of any act or acts of violence.” So much for Democrats’ attempts to paint any objection to the 2020 election as incipient revolution.

Third, the clause of the Constitution these lawsuits invoke arguably does not apply to Trump, in at least two ways. Section 3 of the 14th Amendment only applies to those who have “previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States” — and legal scholars say the term “officer” does not apply to the presidency. Among them is Chief Justice John Roberts, who ruled in a 2010 case, “The people do not vote for the ‘Officers of the United States.’” Other jurists say an 1869 case requires the federal government to pass legislation barring candidates from the ballot. Professors Josh Blackman and S.B. Tillerman highlight a ruling from then-Supreme Court Justice Salmon P. Chase that “[l]egislation by [C]ongress was necessary to give effect to the prohibition” to hold or seek office.

Democrats Want Secretaries of State to Remove Trump from the Ballot without Due Process

Standing on such shaky ground, the Left has declared justice does not matter: Government officials can and “must” unilaterally purge Trump from the ballot before a trial. “Trump could face criminal charges for inciting an insurrection, but that’s not necessary to bar him from the ballot,” claimed former Clinton administration Secretary of Labor Robert Reich in a video posted to social media on September 25. “Secretaries of state and other election officials across the country have the power to determine whether candidates meet the qualifications for office. They have a constitutional duty to keep Trump off the ballot based on the clear text of the U.S. Constitution.”

“This is not about partisanship!” Reich protested-too-much. “Election officials must keep Donald Trump off the ballot in 2024. Democracy cannot survive.”

Follow the Money

Reich asked his viewers to sign a petition from MoveOn.org, the far-left group funded by billionaire George Soros. Coincidentally, Soros also launched a multimillion-dollar effort in 2006 to capture the top election official in every state, known as the Secretary of State Project. Now, the Left says those officials should remove Trump from the ballot, whatever the law may decide.

Indeed, Soros-funded organizations have seeded every aspect of the anti-Trump, democracy-thwarting initiative. The Colorado case came from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a Soros grant recipient long known for filing nuisance cases against Republicans. The Constitutional Accountability Center filed an amicus brief. The nation’s most powerful progressive think tank, the Center for American Progress, supports Trump erasure efforts nationwide.

Democrats against Democracy

Along with Soros, more than a dozen such cases have been filed nationwide by an obscure “Republican” presidential candidate named John Anthony Castro — who in 2004 ran as a Democrat for county commissioner in Webb County, Texas. This author has spent years pointing out that removing Trump from the ballot, or convicting him of a crime to disqualify him from holding office, is one of three ways Democrats try to overturn elections. What better way to impose your will on the people than refusing to let them vote for any unapproved candidate? In fact, Democrats and the left-leaning media have repeatedly described elections themselves as threats to democracy … if Democrats lose.

From the first, Washington Democrats have openly stated they were open to any plan that might remove President Trump from office. On January 10, 2021, then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wrote to her colleagues that she wanted their opinions on “the 25th Amendment, 14th Amendment Section 3 and impeachment.” The star chamber known as the January 6 Committee stated that Trump, and anyone else in the riot, should “be disqualified and barred from holding government office — whether federal or state, civilian or military.”

It also noted that Democratic Reps. Debbie “Wasserman Schultz and [Jamie] Raskin have introduced H. Con. Res. 93 to declare the January 6 assault an insurrection and H.R. 7906 to establish specific procedures and standards for disqualification under section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment.” From the House to the Senate, Tim Kaine (D-Va.) — whom Trump voters disqualified from becoming vice president in 2016 — told ABC News there is “a powerful argument to be made” for eliminating Trump from the ballot.

Eventually, the highest-ranking Democratic official in the land endorsed muffling the vox populi. When a reporter asked President Joe Biden about Trump’s presidential prospects last November, he replied, “We just have to demonstrate that he [Trump] will not take power if he does run,” citing “legitimate efforts of our Constitution.”

The Colorado Supreme Court decision is the culmination of a vast, Democratic weaponization of the federal bureaucracy and intelligence apparatus against the democratic process — a campaign so sweeping and shameless that it is unprecedented in U.S. history (as far as we know). Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign created, and then passed off, risible opposition research as bona fide intelligence. The Obama-Biden administration relied on that report to spy on the Trump campaign, while secretly slow-walking U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s investigation into Hunter Biden.

Operatives briefed President Trump on the Steele Dossier, in order to justify media coverage of the salacious document. Suddenly, the networks fed America an unending, two-year diet of “Russia collusion” stories based on anonymous sources breathlessly promising “the walls are closing in.” Ultimately, a special prosecutor decimated Trump’s tenure in office before Robert Mueller announced he found nothing. In the end, John Durham charged the dossier’s creators with crimes. (They went unpunished, as always.)

Hitting the Snooze Button on The Great Awakening

The Colorado ruling seeks to prevent democratic elections in the name of saving “Our Democracy,”^TM yet its impact is more insidious. The idea that democracy is too precious to be entrusted to voters denies not only our constitutional form of government but the Christian worldview that inspired it.

The Great Awakening helped cement the notion that all people deserve the freedom of conscience. It flowed naturally that, since all people possessed equal value and agency before God, all should have a voice in government. Citizens endowed with intelligence and wisdom by their Creator can be trusted to govern themselves and others responsibly. That view swelled popular support for colonial independence. “The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations,” wrote President John Adams.

Liberal elites have abandoned faith in God, faith in America, and faith in U.S. voters. As this dangerous court ruling proves, the alternative to the “perfect law of liberty” is judicial tyranny.