UNC professor, Constitutional scholar analyzes ruling to keep Donald Trump off ballot in Colorado

tonight we're hearing from one of the nation's top constitutional Scholars a professor at UNCC Chapel Hill at wi's Lena tat spoke to him about the implications here of this ruling and what could happen next and this ruling will almost certainly head to the US Supreme Court similar cases were made in several other States including North Carolina and what happens next could have enormous implications for next year's election and joining me now to help make sense of all this is Michael Gart he is the Burton Craig distinguished professor of jurist prudence at uncc's school of law and the author of the upcoming book The Law of presidential impeachment Professor Gart thank you so much for joining us can you briefly just describe the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling here and the Constitutional argument it makes yes I'm happy to do that and thank you for having me um the Colorado Supreme Court essentially ruled that under part of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution Donald Trump meets the definition of the kinds of people who are ineligible because they engaged in or encouraged Insurrection or gave comfort and Aid to America's enemies uh according to the Colorado Supreme Court uh Trump was found as a matter of fact to have incited Insurrection and as a result um he is ineligible under the terms of the 14th Amendment so a lower Court ruling in Colorado said that the Office of the President does not apply to this particular clause in the 14th Amendment so how does this court Justified that it does and and where do you fall on this um I agree with the best scholarship on this issue and that's um the foundation on which the Colorado Supreme Court rested its decision the best scholarship on this issue of who is covered by section three of the 14th Amendment suggests that the president is of course covered the actual language of the of section three of the 14th Amendment refers to officers of the United States which effectively means everybody who serves under the president of the United States and it would be absurd to think that everybody but the president or vice president is rendered ineligible because they incited Insurrection keep in mind this section was drafted in the immediate aftermath of the for of the Civil War and if the president were not covered that would have meant that Jefferson Davis would have been eligible to run for the presidency of the United States and even win it and occupy that office and I think that's an absurd consideration given the agenda of the people who drafted the 14th Amendment so this ruling of course has not actually taken effect yet the court is giving former president Trump's legal team time to appeal it to the US Supreme Court and the high court of course has a 6 to3 conservative to Liberal split but this argument by Colorado Supreme Court is an originalist reading of the Constitution something that I would think conservative justices may ideologically fall in line more with so where do you see the justi is falling on this I I think that's a really important point I think this is going to be a challenge for the Supreme Court because the juses as you've just said um make a a lot of sort of pronouncements about how we all ought to follow in particular how they ought to follow the original meaning of the Constitution and the scholars who've put together the best search on this are originalists um and they suggest that Trump is covered by the language of that Amendment and it would be ironic for the justices uh to disregard the plain language and the original meaning of the language in favor of some other kind of research or finding that ignores the language and original meaning so many Republicans are Furious and sensed about this saying that this should be left up to voters how do you respond to that I respond that the Constitution of the United States controls the situation um they may be upset by it but the language of Section 3 and I encourage your listeners to read it uh plainly says that anyone who's sworn an oath to defend the country to defend the Constitution but but incites or engages in Insurrection is ineligible to serve in an office of the United States and that seems to fit Trump very neatly top Republic State lawmakers and our state senator Tom Tillis both said today that they are now looking at legislation that would only allow top federal courts to make ballot decisions like this what do you make of that well um Senator TS I assume is talking about trying to create Federal legislation on this question and I doubt very seriously he's going to get a majority in the Senate to agree with that but even if there were such a a federal statute um it's probably unconstitutional to exclude state courts from rendering decisions like the Colorado suing Court just did Professor Gart thank you so much for your Insight tonight it was very helpful thanks for having me

Channel: WRAL

Views: 36,213

Keywords: 2024 elections, 2024 presidential election, Trump, politics, unc professor

Id: AV953hvlR-o

Length: 5min 14sec (314 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 21 2023