Consider This from NPR - The Supreme Court Weighs In On Trump Being Removed From The Ballot

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

When it comes to whether or not Trump should appear on presidential ballots, there are at least two questions to consider. The first is legal — does the 14th amendment apply him? The second is practical. What would happen if Trump WERE removed from the ballot? How might his tens of millions of supporters respond? At a rally last month, the former President suggested if he doesn't get what he views as "fair" treatment, the country is in big trouble.This week the Supreme Court will weigh whether Donald Trump is constitutionally ineligible to be president. We hear from a legal scholar who says it could be the beginning of a, "bloody unraveling of democratic norms." For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Shanna Bellows had a decision to make. She's the Secretary of State in Maine, in charge of running elections there, including the Republican primary election, which of course featured former President Donald Trump. And here is where her decision comes in. Under Maine law, when I qualified Mr. Trump for the ballot, any registered voter had the right to challenge that qualification. Five voters did so, including two former Republican state senators. Those voters wanted Trump off the ballot. They argued that

his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol made him ineligible to serve as president. They cited the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits certain officials who have engaged in, quote, insurrection or rebellion against the United States from holding office again. So Bellows held a hearing, and she said the case was clear. The events of January 6th were an attack on the rule of law and the peaceful transfer of power. And the evidence presented at the hearing demonstrated that they occurred at the behest of and with the knowledge and support of the outgoing president. And the United States Constitution does not tolerate an assault on the foundations of our government. And under Maine election law, I was required to act in response. The criticism was fierce. In her own party,

Democratic Representative Jared Golden said until Trump is found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should be allowed on the ballot. And a Republican state representative, Billy Bob Falkingham, warned of the possible consequence that politicians in both parties could start frivolously removing their opponents from ballots. This is a terrifying, terrifying and disastrous decision that you could see copied by other Secretary of States and other states that would throw our nation into absolute pandemonium. For now, Trump's name does appear on the main primary ballot. And the decision by Shanna Bellows is on hold while the U.S. Supreme Court hears a similar case out of Colorado. Those arguments are on Thursday. But when Bellows talked with NPR at the beginning of this year, she was already feeling another repercussion of her decision. I will tell you, my house was swatted on Friday night. And the, you know, I stand by doing my job, but the response through threats of violence and threatening communications have been unacceptable.

Consider this. This week, the Supreme Court will weigh whether Donald Trump is constitutionally ineligible to be president. We'll hear from a legal scholar who says it could be the beginning of a, quote, bloody unraveling of democratic norms. From NPR, I'm Sasha Pfeiffer. It's Wednesday, February 7th. It's Consider This from NPR. When it comes to whether or not Trump should appear on presidential ballots, there are at least two questions to consider. The first is legal. Does the 14th Amendment indeed apply here?

The second is practical. What would happen if Trump were removed from the ballot? How might his tens of millions of supporters respond? Here's Trump at a rally last month. And I just hope we get fair treatment, because if we don't, our country's in big, big trouble. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? I think so. Because they'll cover that completely differently. They'll cover that in a much different manner. University of Chicago law professor Aziz Haq has spent some time thinking about that second

practical question. Welcome. Thanks for having me, Sasha. Would you walk us through the arguments for and against removing Trump from the ballot? After the Civil War, Congress proposed and the states ratified an amendment to the Constitution that said that anyone who engaged in insurrection or rebellion or provided assistance or aid or comfort to those would be disqualified from holding federal offices if they had previously sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution. The argument today is that Section 3, by its terms, covers various actions that former President Trump committed, particularly on January the 6th. President Trump argues that the terms of Section 3 do not apply to his actions because he is not the right kind of official and because what happened on January the 6th did not count as an insurrection, at least as far as his actions were concerned. He further argues that if Section 3 is to be applied, it has to be done through a mechanism that Congress creates, rather than by the independent actions and decisions of various state authorities.

So he objects on multiple fronts. Whatever the court's ruling eventually is, would that ruling necessarily apply to all the states in terms of whether Trump is off or on the ballot? I think the best way to think about this is that the Supreme Court often rules on one specific factual dispute involving parties on one side and on the other side. Technically, the ruling binds only those parties. I suspect that even if technically the ruling in the Colorado case only binds the Colorado Secretary of State, nonetheless, it will be taken as a powerful signal of what the law is for other state and federal officials. You wrote in Politico that a win for plaintiffs, meaning Trump would be kept off the ballot, would, and we mentioned this earlier, be, quote, the beginning of a bloody unraveling of democratic norms.

Why do you say that? to former President Trump appearing on the 2024 election ballot, that a ruling from the Supreme Court will end the dispute, the public debate, over Trump's candidacy in 2024. Even if the court rules, that is almost certainly not going to be the end of the matter. In the past few years, we've seen an increase in people's expressed willingness to commit acts of political violence. We've seen, particularly in the last couple of months, debate about whether state officials are under an obligation to follow instructions from the Supreme Court. And as we saw in 2020 and 2021, there are often questions about how electors in the Electoral College for President can or should behave. It sounds like you're saying that some people, primarily conservatives or Republicans, might resist. They might defy the order, particularly at the state level.

I think it would be very surprising if the court rules that Trump is barred from the ballot. I think it would be even more surprising if such a ruling did not spark open and active opposition from the general public, who are sympathetic to former President Trump, from state officials, and from the people who are involved in the counting and certification of the general election in November 2024. By the way, did I just hear you say you think it's unlikely that the Supreme Court will rule to keep Trump off the ballot? I think that the Supreme Court is unlikely to rule that President Trump is disqualified, even from the Colorado ballot.

There is a conservative legal thinker named David French who writes a column for The New York Times. And he makes the argument that the consequences of not disqualifying Trump would be even worse. He says if Trump runs and loses, we could see a repeat of January 6th, the attack. And if he wins, he could use the government to go after his political enemies. What do you say about that argument? I think it is completely correct to say, as David French has said, that whatever pathway the country takes between now and let's say mid 2025 is one characterized by a very high risk of political violence. Part of that risk is the violence that might follow from supporters of the former president venting their rage at an outcome

that they don't like, whether that's a court decision or whether it's an electoral result. Part of that political violence might be the misuse of official power by people who don't think that public expression of democratic preferences is okay when those preferences don't align with their views. We are in a world in which there is a greater appetite for political violence among both individuals out in the general public and also people who work for the state in various capacities where they have the right to use force. And under those conditions, it is really hard to see how we navigate the next couple of years without some kind of serious political violence. So either way, you know, Matt, you think that whether or not he's on the ballot, there's a risk of political violence?

I think that the conditions that are creating, that are pushing political violence to the surface are going to exist regardless of the particular sequence of events that lead up to the 2024 election. I have a really hard time seeing how any pathway in which political violence is not a substantial risk. That's University of Chicago Law Professor Aziz Haq. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

This episode was produced by Connor Donovan, Mark Rivers, and Erica Ryan. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. And if you haven't heard, we've got some news. You can now support the podcast by signing up for Consider This Plus. You'll get to hear every episode without messages from sponsors. And even more importantly, your contribution will help make the work of NPR journalists

possible. You can sign up on our show page in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. That link can be found in our episode notes. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Sasha Pfeiffer.