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As the dust settles from Tuesday’s stunning Colorado Supreme Court decision that bars former President Donald Trump’s name from appearing on the state ballot in the upcoming GOP presidential primary because he “engaged in insurrection,” reaction is pouring in from all quarters.
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One of the more forceful responses was from biotech entrepreneur and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who blasted the decision and said he would not appear on the ballot unless Trump were allowed to compete. He also demanded that rivals Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley also make the same move:
This is what an *actual* attack on democracy looks like: in an un-American, unconstitutional, and *unprecedented* decision, a cabal of Democrat judges are barring Trump from the ballot in Colorado. Having tried every trick in the book to eliminate President Trump from running in…
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 19, 2023
He said that if his competitors didn’t make the pledge, they would be “tacitly approving the illegal maneuver” (bolding mine):
Having tried every trick in the book to eliminate President Trump from running in this election, the bipartisan Establishment is now deploying a new tactic to bar him from ever holding office again: the 14th Amendment. I pledge to *withdraw* from the Colorado GOP primary unless Trump is also allowed to be on the state’s ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley to do the same immediately – or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country.
His tweet is long, but he argues that the 14th Amendment should not apply here because “it was passed to prohibit former Confederate military and political leaders from holding high federal or state office.” He argued that it was ludicrous to use this measure against Trump because it was intended to prevent people from becoming president who “had clearly taken part in a rebellion against the United States: the Civil War.”
Trump doesn’t rise anywhere close to that status, in Ramaswamy’s view.
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He also makes a legal argument that Section 3 of the Amendment should not apply to the former president:
And there’s another legal problem: Trump is not a former “officer of the United States,” as that term is used in the Constitution, meaning Section 3 does not apply. As the Supreme Court explained in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010), an “officer of the United States” is someone appointed by the President to aid him in his duties under Article II, Section 2. The term does not apply to elected officials, and certainly not to the President himself.
But his closing statement was his most powerful:
The Framers of the 14th Amendment would be appalled to see this narrow provision—intended to bar former U.S. officials who switched to the Confederacy from seeking public office—being weaponized by a sitting President and his political allies to prevent a former President from seeking reelection. Our country is becoming unrecognizable to our Founding Fathers.
True words.
Ramaswamy is an extreme long-shot to win the GOP nomination, at least according to the polls, but this is the second time he’s been on the money recently:
Vivek Ramaswamy Hits It Out of the Park With His Criticism of DEI at CNN Town Hall
It will be interesting to see if the other GOP contenders take him up on his challenge.
