Kennedy Brings Calm to a Rocky Colorado Court Ruling

By Adam Garrie, The Kennedy Beacon

By Adam Garrie, The Kennedy Beacon

“The court has deprived [Trump] of a consequential right without having been convicted of a crime. This was done without an evidentiary hearing in which he is given the basic right of confronting his accusers.”
– Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The Colorado Supreme Court yesterday sent shockwaves through an already turbulent political landscape when it ruled that President Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s Republican primary ballot on March 5, 2024 – and, by extrapolation, on the general election ballot in November of 2024. The court admitted the ruling was “uncharted territory” while Trump supporters accused the court of acting in a politicized rather than judicious manner. 

Due to its short-term impact and potential long-term precedent, the seismic ruling’s legacy will reverberate across a plethora of cultural, political, and electoral fault lines. This was highlighted by independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who issued the following response on X to the ruling:

Every American should be troubled by the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove President Trump from the ballot. 

The court has deprived him of a consequential right without having been convicted of a crime. This was done without an evidentiary hearing in which he is given the basic right of confronting his accusers.

When any candidate is deprived of his right to run, the American people are deprived of their right to choose. I hope the Colorado Supreme Court swiftly reverses this decision. At the very least, it contributes to the perception that the elites are picking the President by manipulating the legal system, and through other interventions.

If Trump is kept out of office through judicial fiat rather than being defeated in a fair election, his supporters will never accept the result. This country will become ungovernable. 

It’s time to trust the voters. It is up to the people to decide who the best candidate is. Not the courts. The people. That’s Democracy 101. #Kennedy24

What The Court Ruled

The Colorado ruling is the first time that a major political candidate and former president has had his ballot access restricted based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. 

The section in question reads as follows:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability. 

At issue are three fundamental questions in the view of the Colorado Supreme Court. First, did Donald Trump in fact “engage” in an “insurrection” against the government of the United States, based on remarks made in a speech delivered on January 6, 2021? This question relies on a legal discussion of whether Trump’s public speech on January 6 constitutes engaging in an insurrection, given that he has not been accused in any forum of specifically organizing a riot or insurrection. 

Second, is the former president considered “an officer of the United States” as defined in the 14th Amendment? And third, do Colorado state courts have jurisdiction over such a matter as laid out by the plaintiff in the original lawsuit, the nonprofit group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington? These were the questions addressed by the Colorado Supreme Court, although no court in which Donald Trump is a defendant has ruled on whether or not he engaged in an insurrection or, for that matter, whether the events of January 6 can be legally defined as such. 

In its ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court acknowledged that a lower court found that Trump “engaged in insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three [of the 14th Amendment].” However, the lower court found that a former president should not be considered “an officer of the United States.” Four justices of the Colorado Supreme Court disagreed with the second aspect of the lower court’s ruling and instead found that Trump was both an insurrectionist and an officer of the United States. As such, the court ordered the Colorado secretary of state to remove Trump’s name from the 2024 Republican primary ballot, an order that Colorado’s secretary of state will enforce, as reported by CBS News.

It is noteworthy that the relevant section of the 14th Amendment was intended to bar former officials of the Confederate States of America from taking positions in the US government after 1865 and has rarely been invoked since the 19th century. The contentious question as to whether a former president can be considered an “officer of the United States” is likely to be one of the main issues deliberated on appeal. 

In his dissenting opinion, Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Brian Boatright said, “In the absence of an insurrection-related conviction [of Trump], I would hold that a request to disqualify a candidate under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment is not a proper cause of action under Colorado’s election code.” 

Kennedy and the Bigger Picture 

In his reaction to the ruling, Kennedy emphasized the public policy implications of the ruling in terms of both optics and its likely consequences. The optics of four judges from an “elite” class of Americans prohibiting the electorate from engaging in their opportunity to render a verdict on a presidential candidate does not easily mesh with the notion of a country where anyone can become president. It appears equally alien to a country where everyone can and ideally should participate in the decision as to who the next president will be. 

The fact that the current electoral system is far from perfect in terms of ballot access, campaign finance laws, and the phenomenon of the censorship industrial complex provides a strong argument against adding layers of complexity to an already needlessly convoluted system. 

Kennedy also addressed the issue of a country that becomes ungovernable if, for the third presidential election in a row, supporters of one of the candidates refuse to accept the official election results. After all, if elections are as fair as Donald Trump’s Democrat opponents say they are, it would obviously be logical to limit the electoral fight to debates over issues and character, rather than making it contingent on unprecedented judicial decisions. 

Drawing on his experience as an attorney, Kennedy also crucially highlighted that because Trump was not a defendant in the lawsuit (the defendant was the Colorado secretary of state), he was not in a position to defend himself in the Colorado district court regarding claims that he engaged in an insurrection. This left the Colorado courts to rely primarily on the Select January 6th Committee Final Report as the lodestone of evidence that led it to agree with the conclusion of the district court that the events of January 6, 2021, were an insurrection and that the former president engaged in an insurrection, claims which have been vigorously denied by Trump in other forums. The court also cited dictionary definitions of insurrection, office, and engage, due to the absence of explicit definitions of these terms in the Constitution with reference to the 14th Amendment. 

It is also relevant that the Select Committee’s report is a document from a legislative and not a judicial body. Furthermore, Trump has not been convicted of inciting or engaging in an insurrection by any court in which he is a defendant in such matters.

Kennedy is the only major candidate in the 2024 election who has consistently spoken in civil terms about President Biden and President Trump. His disagreements with his electoral opponents are based on issues, not personal grudges with the two men or their supporters. This is a refreshing message in an age when politics ping-pongs between the gutter and the judicial bench. 

The Media Feeding Frenzy 

Media reactions to the epochal ruling were as predictable as they were unsettling. Biden- supporting commentators and outlets took an ideological victory lap while Trump-supporting commentators and media took the view that a judicial war had been declared against the former president and his supporters. 

Some of the most prescient comments came from social media, where both Americans and others noted that a country that has fought wars (including proxy wars) throughout the world in the name of democracy is now clearly uncomfortable with and unsure of its own democratic system. These views are hard to argue with, as it has traditionally been in countries with emerging, weak, or outright corrupt democracies that candidates were prohibited from engaging in a free and fair electoral process. 

Largely absent from legacy media discussions of the issue was in-depth analysis of the 14th Amendment, let alone the public policy implications of the ruling. At a time when the media could and should have projected calm into a political storm, it decided to fan the flames. 

This is all the more curious given the fact that the same set of legacy media outlets continually excoriated doctors and informed commentators who offered views on public health policy that were at odds with the policies of the federal public health bureaucracy during the COVID-19 shutdown. 

At that time, media commentators called experienced clinicians “irresponsible” for stating their views on a major physical and mental health crisis. That same media engages in deeply inflammatory rhetoric regarding the Trump ruling in Colorado. This is, of course, their right under the First Amendment – a law that media companies enjoy for themselves while mocking others who wish to enjoy their constitutional rights in an equally unmolested manner. 

What’s Next? 

The Colorado Supreme Court ruling will be appealed to the US Supreme Court. The matter will likely need to be resolved prior to January 4, 2024, when the Colorado court’s order will go into effect, having been stayed (paused) until that date. 

Even if the US Supreme Court, with its majority of Republican-appointed judges, rules in favor of Trump, confidence in the electoral and judicial systems has been shaken. 

Kennedy’s voice of calm and moderation increasingly appears to be an exception that proves a rule in an era when politics is increasingly defined by outlandish and typically unsubstantiated accusations. Kennedy seeks to restore an atmosphere in which politics is defined by debates about policy and where candidates stand and fall on matters of integrity, rather than those of intrigue and subterfuge. Because the Colorado ruling deals with issues central to the future of the United States, its implications cannot be ignored, especially in an age of high inflation, a border crisis, cultural uncertainty, and conflicts overseas. 

The aftermath of the Colorado Supreme Court ruling means we are living at a time when issues of voter access are at the top of the agenda yet, paradoxically, it is now also an age in which voters might be unable to access a ballot that contains the name of one of the three most popular candidates in an election. 

Adam Garrie is a writer, speaker and consultant on a wide range of current affairs as well as political risk. He is also the co-founder of HiCyrus, a data-driven tech start up that aims to fully democratize information access