Democrats are showing signs of caution over the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to evoke the 14th Amendment to exclude former President Trump from the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot.
Liberals and centrists both see Trump as a threat to democracy and believe he should be held accountable for inspiring the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
But the Tuesday ruling by four Democratic judges has the potential to normalize states’ ability to stifle candidates for possible partisan reasons, some say, raising questions about overreach and voter choice.
“Ultimately, I believe Trump’s political fate will be decided by the voters, not the courts,” Jim Kessler, vice president for policy at the think tank Third Way, told The Hill. “We need to convince that jury of 150 million Americans that he is not only guilty of insurrection on January 6th, but also bad for the economy, our national security, and for the mood of this nation.”
Democrats who are unequivocally unified around defeating Trump in November are now also cautioning that diminishing voters’ ability to decide who represents them is a slippery, even potentially dangerous route at a time when democratic norms are fraying across the country.
“To be clear, I do believe the crimes that Trump committed with regard to January 6th should disqualify him,” said Kessler, “I simply believe that is unlikely [to] happen in a court of law.”
The only elected Democrat challenging President Biden for the nomination, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, argued it’s “wrong” to exclude Trump from a choice on the ticket, despite disagreeing with him politically.
“Do I believe Trump is guilty of inspiring an insurrection and doing nothing to stop it? I was there. Absolutely,” Phillips wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Do I believe it’s wrong to ban him from the ballot in Colorado without a conviction? Absolutely. Do I believe the SCOTUS must opine immediately? Absolutely.”
America’s judicial system has been increasingly scrutinized as political, as the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has routinely ruled along partisan lines on social issues. While some Democratic lawmakers expressed support for the Colorado decision to keep Trump off the ballot and maybe cripple his path to the nomination, others are offering more muted comments, careful to avoid echoing Republicans’ strategy to politicize the bench.
One day after the Colorado decision was announced, California’s lieutenant governor asked the secretary of state to “explore every legal option to remove former President Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary ballot.”
“In a democracy, the people have the final word,” David Axelrod, who served as former President Obama’s chief strategist, wrote on X, making a not-so-veiled reference to the 4-3 Colorado court case. “If America chooses a president who approvingly quotes the murderous Putin, recycles Hitler's hateful libel against the Jews to slime immigrants and hails the likes of Kim Jung-Un, sad to say, America will get the president it deserves.”
Axelrod, who has irked Bidenworld all cycle by criticizing the president and his low approval numbers, was articulating a belief held among some within his party about the importance of maintaining an independent voting system for democracy. Many who hold that view tout the standard Democratic argument that Trump is not the right person to lead the country but do not believe the court should interfere.
Liberal political writer Jonathan Chait made a similar point in New York Magazine, writing, “To deny the voters the chance to elect the candidate of their choice is a Rubicon-crossing event for the judiciary,” in an article titled, “Disqualifying Trump From the Ballot Is a Step Too Far.”
“It would be seen forever by tens of millions of Americans as a negation of democracy,” Chait said. “It is not enough that their belief is plausibly wrong or likely wrong. It must be incontrovertibly wrong to support such a momentous step.”
Democrats have mostly hedged that the Supreme Court will likely have the last word, offering some nuance to the issue that has, for now, infuriated the Trump-aligned right. President Biden teed off that argument, ever-cautious to weigh into legal or constitutional questions around his chief opponent.
Biden and administration officials have prioritized their neutrality over Trump’s ongoing legal cases, a point of contrast that Democrats believe distinguishes them from Republicans, who they say have sought to slant courts across the country. Many also believe Trump will seek to meddle in the Justice Department if he’s elected to a second term in office.
“That’s up to the courts, that’s all I have to say,” Biden said in Milwaukee. The president has made it clear throughout his White House tenure that he believes Trump “certainly supported an insurrection,” a comment he reiterated after the ruling.
The issue has not, for now, divided the Democratic Party among ideological sides, offering a rare point of unity. Progressives are often in lockstep with moderates over the court’s independence, using it as a crusade against their right-wing counterparts.
“It’s a bombshell decision. I do agree that there's evidence that Donald Trump committed the insurrection,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a House progressive, on CNN after the ruling was announced. “Even the district court found that. And it seems to me it should apply to the president. And so it seems that the Supreme Court decision was well-reasoned.”
“But, ultimately, this goes up to the United States Supreme Court,” Khanna said. “What the United States Supreme Court decides could apply not just to Colorado, but set a precedent for the entire country. So, that's going to be a very critical case.”
On the other side, pro-Trump Republicans, whose disbelief that the 2020 presidential election was won fairly by Biden, leading to the Capitol insurrection, have expressed wide condemnation about the Colorado ruling.
“A sad day for America!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his alternative social media platform.
Beyond the former president and his allies, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the leading figure challenging both parties' presumptive White House nominees, also criticized the decision, likening it to non-democratic foreign governments that do not adhere to the rule of law.
“When a court in another country disqualifies an opposition candidate from running, we say, ‘That’s not a real democracy.’ Now it’s happening here,” Kennedy wrote on X.
Kennedy’s double-digit support in some polls among independents has concerned both establishment parties, who each fear his candidacy could hurt their nominees in the general election.
Previously a Democratic challenger to Biden, the independent is hoping to appeal to voters unenthusiastic about either candidate and the government system.
“I want to beat him in a fair election, not because he was kicked off the ballot,” he wrote. “Let the voters choose, not the courts!”
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