A Question of Jurisdiction\u00a0<\/h2>\n
While Trump\u2019s attorneys and others in support of the former president rightly argue<\/a> the Colorado court made \u201ca slew of legal errors,\u201d the brief filed by the election integrity groups argues there is also a jurisdictional problem. The Colorado Supreme Court\u2019s decision allowing Trump to be tossed from the state\u2019s ballot violates the U.S. Constitution\u2019s Electors Clause, according to the brief.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn summary, under the Electors Clause, a state running a statewide presidential election, primary or general election, is preempted from excluding any Article II, section 1, clause 5 qualified presidential candidate from any presidential ballot because the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has exclusive quo warranto jurisdiction after the President-Elect is elected to determine disqualification,\u201d the court filing states.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The argument is that states may remove a presidential candidate from the ballot for failing to meet the Article II, section 1 requirements on age, citizenship, and residency. States may also disqualify a candidate who fails to meet nominating requirements. Those exceptions do not apply in Trump\u2019s case.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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All other disqualification authority, the brief argues, rests on the shoulders of the D.C. Court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCongress enacted D.C. Code \u00a7 16\u20133501 showing a clear and manifest purpose that the disqualification of Presidents was to be done in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, not in the states prior to the election of the President-Elect,\u201d the court filing states.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Quo Warranto\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Congress did so with the idea of quo warranto<\/a>, a writ or legal action \u201cused to challenge a person\u2019s right to hold a public or corporate office.\u201d In the case of D.C. Code \u00a7 16\u20133501, quo warranto is applicable to officeholders in the District of Columbia, like the president of the United States. Kaardal argues that the law gives the D.C. court the authority to determine whether the president-elect or, should the individual have taken the oath of office, the president is qualified to serve.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The brief cites a 1915 U.S. Supreme Court case<\/a> involving a newspaper reporter nominated by President Woodrow Wilson and confirmed by the Senate to serve as civil commissioner of the District of Columbia. The Supreme Court ultimately found that the resident who brought the case against the commissioner did not have standing, but noted that\u00a0quo\u00a0warranto may be used in disqualification of federal officers.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis fact also shows that 1538-1540 of the District Code, in proper cases, instituted by proper officers or persons, may be enforceable against national officers of the United States. The sections are therefore to be treated as general laws of the United States, not as mere local laws of the District,\u201d the opinion, written by Justice Joseph Lamar, states.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n
So, the election integrity groups argue, \u201cdisqualifying a President-Elect, even a future President-Elect, i.e., a presidential candidate, is a federal power that could only be exercised by the federal government after the presidential candidate is elected as President-Elect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The left-leaning Project on Government Oversight\u00a0<\/a> (POGO) telegraphed the left\u2019s potential use of quo warranto to get Trump in its 2022 recommendations to the highly partisan congressional Jan. 6 committee.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe writ of\u00a0quo warranto<\/em>\u00a0generally allows a court to hear challenges to a person\u2019s right to hold public office and remove an unqualified individual from office. In many jurisdictions, quo warranto<\/em>\u00a0rules are now codified. At the federal level, Congress codified\u00a0quo warranto<\/em>\u00a0in the District of Columbia Code,\u201d the report<\/a> notes.\u00a0\u201cUnder the\u00a0quo warranto<\/em>\u00a0law, the federal district court in Washington may issue a writ of\u00a0quo warranto<\/em>\u00a0against anyone in the District who unlawfully holds \u2018a public office of the United States.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Binkley and the Ballot Battle<\/h2>\nThe filing is one of 78 amicus<\/a> \u2014 or friend of the court \u2014 briefs filed in Trump v. Anderson<\/a><\/em>,<\/a> in which Trump has appealed the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court to disqualify him from the ballot under the dubious claim that the former president violated the \u201cinsurrection clause\u201d of the 14th Amendment. The brief is one of 14 filed in support of neither party.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In fact, the filing grew out of little-known Republican presidential candidate Ryan Binkley\u2019s legal fight for ballot placement in Minnesota. Binkley, also represented by Kaardal, was found not to have met the requirements laid out by the Republican Party of Minnesota to appear on the state\u2019s 2024 primary ballot. The party demanded qualifying candidates had to have appeared at the first GOP presidential primary debate in Milwaukee last August or have held high-ranking office, such as president, vice president, member of Congress, governor, or mayor of a city with more than 250,000 residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While Binkley meets all the basic constitutional qualifications, the Texas pastor with little national name recognition could not qualify under the party requirements. The Minnesota secretary of state barred Binkley from the primary ballot, and the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the decision<\/a>, shooting down the argument that the state had no authority to disqualify the candidate on such grounds. They found the petitioners\u2019 claim lacked legal merit, but as of Tuesday had yet to issue a final ruling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kaardal said the Democrat Party is pushing expanded qualifications for ballot status, too, in an attempt to make the presidential nominating process a coronation instead of a choice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe longer view is we really have to watch these introductions of state requirements for being a primary candidate because the establishment is trying to reduce choices,\u201d the attorney said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Party Power<\/h2>\n
Constitutional law expert Rick Esenberg said the federal authority challenge is a \u201clive argument\u201d even though he doesn\u2019t necessarily agree with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Esenberg, president and general counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said there is a body of law on the right of political parties to control the presidential nominating process. He noted the 1984 shakeup<\/a> in which the Democrat Party of Wisconsin, pushed by the national party in an effort to eliminate cross-over voting, used a two-tiered caucus process in selecting delegates to the national convention. The longstanding primary was reduced to an advisory mechanism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But caucuses, organized by parties and not administered by state election offices, are different political animals \u2014 as the storied Iowa caucuses show the world every four years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Esenberg said the U.S. Supreme Court and the country are entering mostly uncharted territory. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have a lot of experience of what any of this stuff means,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Who Decides Who Can Be President?\u00a0<\/h2>\n
The Public Interest Legal Foundation asserts in court filings<\/a> that the legal viability of the 14th Amendment\u2019s Section 3, the foundation for the challenge, \u201cis suspect\u201d at best.\u00a0The amicus brief in support of Trump, like others, argues that the presidency is notably absent in the list of specific offices to which Section 3 \u2014 the insurrection clause \u2014 applies. Section 3, the brief also argues, is not self-executing; Congress has not passed an enforcement law, so \u201cno court has the authority\u201d to enforce it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the brief, like other Trump-aligned filings in the case, makes no mention of the quo warranto law and its demands of federal jurisdiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lauren Bowman, director of communications for the foundation, said she was not familiar with the legal argument. She said the Constitution spells out the requirements for the presidency, and \u201cstates can\u2019t arbitrarily go through and decide who can be president.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bowman noted the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s 1994 decision<\/a> blocking Arkansas from adopting congressional term limits as a case that raised similar separation of power questions. Arkansas\u2019 constitutional amendment limited terms for the state\u2019s members of the U.S. House and Senate. The question raised: Can states add to those qualifications for the U.S. Congress specifically enumerated by the U.S. Constitution? No, the 5-4 majority opinion found.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Constitution prohibits States from adopting Congressional qualifications in addition to those enumerated in the Constitution,\u201d summarized case database Oyez.org.<\/p>\n
That train of thought may be of interest to the Supreme Court justices hearing the Colorado ballot case.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But isn\u2019t the federal jurisdictional argument just kicking the can down the road? Why not deal with the disqualification question now, before the election? <\/p>\n
Kaardal insists the unprecedented legal question will ultimately end up in the D.C. court if Trump wins \u2014 even if the Supreme Court tosses the Colorado decision, as many constitutional law experts expect the high court to do. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf Trump is elected president, he\u2019s not an insurrectionist. It answers the question\u201d via the voters, the attorney said. \u201cThe U.S. Supreme Court would be saying something\u00a0illogical if someone was elected president but could be disqualified because of previous acts of \u2018insurrection.\u2019 If Trump wins the election and the Supreme Court ultimately\u00a0sacks him there will be a reckoning of sorts.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Colorado usurped federal court authority in dumping former President Donald Trump from the Republican presidential primary ballot, according to an amicus brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court.\u00a0 The brief, filed by attorneys for election integrity organizations in Michigan and Wisconsin, argues that the U.S. Constitution and federal law limit states\u2019 authority to disqualify a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":656,"featured_media":2170227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/33339382532_df1a668500_k.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2170226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/33339382532_df1a668500_k.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/656"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2170226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2170227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2170226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2170226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2170226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}