The former president’s lawyers donald trump (2017-2021) urged this Thursday the Supreme Court to put an end “quickly and decisively” to any effort to expel him from the presidential primaries. Republican Party and prevent it from competing against Joe Biden in the November elections.
Trump’s lawyers took this position in a brief delivered to the high court before the judges hold a public hearing on February 8 to study the case on Trump’s expulsion from the Republican primary. Republican Party in Colorado.
In that document, the lawyers argue that attempts to oust Trump from the election will disenfranchise millions of Americans and could “unleash chaos and confusion if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead and exclude the likely Republican presidential candidate from their ballots”.
He Supreme Court is studying this case at the request of Trump’s legal team, which has appealed a previous decision by the Colorado Supreme Court.
On December 19 of last year, in a ruling unprecedented in the history of USAthe Colorado Supreme Court had determined that Trump could not participate in that state’s Republican primary due to his role in the assault on the Capitol.
Later, on December 28, Maine became the second state to disqualify Trump. In this case, the decision was made by the authority in charge of organizing the elections in that constituency, the Secretary of State of Maine, the Democrat Shenna Bellows.
Trump’s legal team has also appealed that decision by the Maine Secretary of State, in that case before the Supreme Court of that state.
In both cases, authorities considered that Trump participated in an attempt to “insurrection”, which disqualifies him from holding public office according to the Third Section of the Amendment 14 of the Constitution.
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That amendment was approved in 1868, after the civil war in the United States, with the aim of preventing the southern rebels of the Confederacy who had sworn to the Constitution and then betrayed it from coming to power.
These decisions, in the absence of a ruling by the US Supreme Courtonly affect Colorado and Maine because in the US federal system each state – and not the nation – is responsible for organizing the elections.
Another fifteen states, including Oregon, Virginia, NY either Snowfallare also deciding whether Trump can run in the elections.
In the complex American political and electoral system, where the states are in charge of organizing the elections, even if they are presidential, each one has its own laws and rules, so similar demands can have a different outcome.
This is where the Supreme Court becomes more important, since a ruling by the High Court It should be followed throughout the nation.
Six of the nine members of the High Court are considered conservative, three of them nominated by Trump himself during his term, so it would be surprising if they did not agree with the former president.
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However, the fact that some of them are followers of the “originalism”, a legal current that advocates interpreting the Constitution as the founders wrote it, sows doubts about the future decision of the Supreme Court.
Although the public hearing to study the case will be on February 8, it is not yet known when the US Supreme Court will issue its ruling and it is not known how far it will go.
The primaries in both Colorado and Maine are scheduled for March 5.
