An unprecedented decision taken by the Colorado Supreme Court to prevent former President Donald Trump from participating in the primaries. A decision which, however, has been suspended pending the resolution of the case by the Supreme Court of the United States, which has in fact decided to examine the appeal presented by Trump on January 5th.
On December 19, 2023, the Court of the Centennial State – the centennial state, so called because it was admitted as the thirty-eighth state by President Ulysess Grant in 1876, exactly one hundred years after the Declaration of Independence – had decided to exclude the former president from the 2024 presidential elections in its territory, resorting to a clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the American Constitution, used for the first time against a candidate in the presidential primaries.
The law dates back to the end of the Civil War and was introduced to block the return to federal elective positions of political figures compromised with the Southern Confederation, who could destabilize the fragile order established on the ashes of the conflict, perhaps to once again attempt secessionist coups. The exclusion of Trump contained in the ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court, in fact, is given by the recognition of him as an effective leader and in full support of the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, recognized as an act of insurrection.
Just a few days before the start of the round of primary elections, which will lead to the choice of candidates who will face each other for the presidential dispute in November 2024, this twist certainly leaves the door open to debates, considerations and predictions.
«The Supreme Court of the State of Colorado has delegitimized Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot in the general elections, that is, from being a candidate for the President of the United States», states Alessandro Tapparini, jurist and expert on the United States. «Consequently it also established that Trump cannot participate in the Republican primaries».
It is worth remembering that primaries are not elections that involve the relevant party exclusively from an internal point of view. «Unlike our country, in the United States the primaries have a public aspect, are regulated by law and are not totally entrusted to the autonomy of the parties. They therefore have public relevance also on a legal and regulatory level”, explains Tapparini. The Republican Party, therefore, cannot ignore this historic decision.
Currently, the federal Supreme Court is made up of nine justices, elected by various presidents over the past few decades. Six of these are from the Republican area, as Tapparini reminds us. Among these, three were elected by Donald Trump (Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett). Donald Trump’s press office had made it known, immediately after the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision, that they would take up the appeal. «Trump, when he addresses the Supreme Court of the United States, starts from the assumption that he is playing at home. However, this gives him absolutely no guarantee that he will be proven right every time. In fact, the opposite has also happened in the past. However, there are the conditions to try”, says Tapparini.
There are many questions at this point: will Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court succeed in truly overturning the situation? To what extent will this historic decision remain purely symbolic or will it be effective on a legal level?
According to Tapparini there is no doubt, with a high probability that the US Supreme Court will overturn the sentence and that this story will remain symbolic. «Let’s not forget that the Colorado Court’s decision was made by a majority of just one vote to three (4 – 3), which is quite borderline. Most analysts believe it is likely that the US Supreme Court will strike it down,” she explains.
What will remain, therefore, is “the sensation it caused, rather than a legal effect that may never materialize”, as Alessandro Tapparini points out. Furthermore, Colorado has been a blue state for several years, where the Republicans are considered losers: it will therefore not have much impact on the candidacy for the White House. Everything, therefore, would be exhausted in terms of image and reputation.
Trump, on the other hand, is not someone who gives up easily through legal action either and his election campaign could be punctuated by legal proceedings against him. So how crucial will it be at the polls? How will the Trumpians react? «We Italians know from experience that this type of situation only cheers up the hard core of the supporters of the politician who is under judicial proceedings, because it is seen as an attempt to trip him up using an alternative route to the democratic voting process, thus distorting the campaign. electoral”, explains Tapparini. “This would make voters loyal to Donald Trump more motivated to be so.”
On the other hand, those who did not initially want to vote for Trump will be even less inclined to do so, moved by the damage to their reputation which will give them further confirmation. «In the background, it remains to be understood whether his Democratic opponents, such as Joe Biden, are better off having Trump as candidate or not», reflects Tapparini. «One might think that Biden would benefit from having Trump as an opponent: the President himself recently publicly declared that he would not have run for a second term if Trump had not been the main challenger».
The question therefore reflects exclusively on the reputation with which Trump will face the long march towards the 2024 presidential elections. «The issue is not so much about Trump’s exclusion from the elections, as established by the sentence, but that he participates with a lot of lead in his wings, with a role of a person with many legal problems, not clean, not reliable and not correct”, explains Tapparini.
Curated by Laura Gaspari