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A courtroom in Denver will host, starting Monday morning, something the nation has never seen: a trial to determine whether a major party’s likely presidential nominee is eligible to be president.
The lawsuit, filed in September by six Colorado voters with the help of a watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, contends that former President Donald J. Trump is ineligible to hold office again under Section 3. of the 14th Amendment. That article disqualifies anyone who “engages in an insurrection or rebellion” against the Constitution after having taken an oath to support it.
The plaintiffs say Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including his actions before and while his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to try to stop the certification of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. , meet the disqualification criteria.
Sarah B. Wallace, the state district court judge presiding over the case, refused multiple requests of Mr. Trump and the Colorado Republican State Central Committee in recent weeks to dismiss the case without trial.
judge wallace has presented nine topics that will be addressed in the trial, which is expected to last all week. They include whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to presidents; what “engaged” and “insurrection” mean in that section; whether Trump’s actions fit those definitions; and whether the amendment is “self-executing”; In other words, whether it can be applied without specific action by Congress identifying to whom it applies.
These questions have been debated since the January 6 attack, especially since Trump announced he would run for president again, but there is little precedent to help answer them. The 14th Amendment was ratified shortly after the Civil War and the disqualification clause originally applied to people who had fought for the Confederacy. Courts have rarely had occasion to evaluate its modern application, and never in a case of this magnitude.
Some prominent constitutional experts, including conservative law professors William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen in an academic article, and former conservative justice J. Michael Luttig and liberal law professor Laurence H. Tribe in the atlantic – have argued that the clause applies to Mr. Trump.
But that view is far from universal among jurists, and several have told the New York Times in recent months that the issues are complicated.
The court’s list of issues also calls for discussion of Section 3 of the 20th Amendment, which governs what happens if a new president and vice president have not “qualified” by the time they are supposed to take office.
The section says, in part, that “Congress may establish by law the case in which neither a president-elect nor a vice president-elect has qualified.”
Trump’s lawyers say this means only Congress can enforce the constitutional qualifications for the presidency. The plaintiffs’ lawyers rejected that argument in a brief last weeksaying that the “plain language” of the amendment, which refers to the “president-elect,” applies only to a person who has already been elected and has nothing to do with the ability of states to adjudicate the qualifications of candidates .
The Colorado lawsuit is one of several efforts across the country to remove Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment. Oral arguments in a case in Minnesota are scheduled to begin Thursday, and a lawsuit has also been filed in New Hampshire. Separately, Democratic lawmakers in California last month asked their state’s attorney general to seek a judicial opinion on Trump’s eligibility.
Whatever verdict is issued in these cases, it will not be final. They will almost certainly be appealed by the losing side, and the Supreme Court (which has a 6-3 conservative majority, including three Trump-appointed justices) is likely to have the final say.