The Atlantic

The Colorado Ruling Calls the Originalists’ Bluff

The disqualification of Donald Trump challenges the Supreme Court’s conservatives to follow through on their stated beliefs.
Source: Mark Peterson / Redux

The Colorado Supreme Court has left the justices of the United States Supreme Court in the very uncomfortable position of having to prove that they have the courage of their stated convictions.

Yesterday, Colorado’s high court ruled in a 4–3 decision that former President Donald Trump, because of his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, is disqualified from appearing on the ballot in Colorado, based on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The language of that section, written in the aftermath of the Civil War to disqualify former Confederates who had taken up arms against the United States in defense of the institution of human bondage, is short and simple:

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

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