{"id":519,"date":"2024-12-11T12:01:13","date_gmt":"2024-12-11T13:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/macroron.com\/?p=519"},"modified":"2024-12-11T17:21:27","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T17:21:27","slug":"krista-kafer-i-tried-to-keep-trump-off-the-ballot-now-in-a-few-weeks-he-will-be-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/macroron.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/11\/krista-kafer-i-tried-to-keep-trump-off-the-ballot-now-in-a-few-weeks-he-will-be-president\/","title":{"rendered":"Krista Kafer: I tried to keep Trump off the ballot, now, in a few weeks he will be president"},"content":{"rendered":"

What are Trump\u2019s prevarications and peccadillos compared to the prospect of real political progress? Why continue to dredge up January 6 so many years later? That’s what my friends ask me when I express dismay at President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House next year.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s attempt to overturn the 2020 election and disenfranchise 81 million Biden voters<\/a>, while unfortunate, didn\u2019t succeed, my friends who voted to put the former president back in office tell me. My fixation with Trump\u2019s behavior just shows an inability to perceive the greater good.<\/p>\n

Are they right? If over the next four years the administration reduces inflation and illegal immigration, appoints conservative judges, thins the federal bureaucracy, and initiates other policies should I regret challenging Trump\u2019s eligibility to run for highest office and rejoice our efforts came to naught?<\/p>\n

Nearly a year out from the Colorado Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in Trump v. Anderson<\/a>, a number of us involved in the case are reflecting on our choices. I lost friends and business contracts, and was blacklisted, censured, and threatened with violence. But for the glass of wine a supporter bought me, the experience was a total loss.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not the only one. Litigants, lawyers, and justices have all experienced harassment since taking the case. I was just too naive at the time to see it coming.<\/p>\n

Monica M.\u00a0M\u00e1rquez, Chief Justice of the Colorado Supreme Court, recently spoke about how she lost sleep over the decision\u2019s potential consequences to her safety and that of her family, coworkers, colleagues, clerks, and neighbors. She nevertheless joined the majority because \u201cit was what the law required.\u201d<\/p>\n

The law, in this case the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, forbids anyone from holding office who took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection. More than a year ago, six of us Coloradans, four Republicans and two unaffiliated voters, sued the Colorado Secretary of State to uphold the law by keeping an ineligible candidate off the 2024 ballot. A trial court judge, after hearing weeklong testimony from both sides, concluded Trump did indeed engage in insurrection when he fomented violence to prevent the peaceful transfer of power in an attempt to stay in office. The Colorado Supreme Court concurred and unlike the trial judge, a majority of justices determined the text of the law applied to former presidents.<\/p>\n

Several months later, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ruling<\/a>. While the justices did not contest the finding of insurrection, they ruled that states could not disqualify federal candidates from their ballots. Instead, Congress would have to act. Case over and not just in this instance; partisans in Congress rarely hold their own party members to account. The insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment has been effectively repealed.<\/p>\n