Leave the Opinion Pages Behind

At least one matter, perhaps two, on which the Supremes may all agree.

As is well known, Colorado’s highest court last week decided 4-3 that former President Donald Trump was disqualified from holding office again, under terms of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.  By encouraging his supporters to storm the capitol in an attempt to prevent certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory, the court ruled that Trump had engaged in insurrection. 

The Colorado justices delayed until January 4 their order that his name be stricken from the ballot, in hopes that the US Supreme Court may take a hand.

Three days later, the Supreme Court cleared its decks, rejecting without comment Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request that it supersede an appellate court’s hearing on Trump’s assertion of presidential immunity to criminal prosecution, in order to speed thing up.

Trump’s trial on the January 6 charges is scheduled to begin March 4. The appellate court hearing on his immunity claim is scheduled for January 9.

Authorities of all sorts weighed in on the news. The Wall Street Journal front-paged the best response to its reporters’ questions. Jessica Levinson, an election law specialist at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles said,

This case screams out for US Supreme Court resolution. The court can’t let state supreme courts make a patchwork of decisions. The case brings up an important federal constitutional question with time-sensitive consequences.  They will need to act, and act quickly.

The New York Times has the best roundup of cases in sixteen other states that depend on the Supreme Court’s decision.

In fact, the news pages of the three major American newspapers are following the story intelligently and dispassionately.  Editorial pages, on the other hand, are all over the map, the Times in particular. (Its editorialists may have been watching the movies.)  In Milwaukee, President Biden echoed the Colorado majority opinion, missing the point. 

The insurrection charges must be decided in federal courts, no matter how long and how many appeals are required to reach a final verdict. A quick unanimous decision to that effect by the Supremes would buttress the mood of cautious optimism that arrived with the winter solstice. The days have begun to grow longer. Let the law take its tortuous course.  If Trump is to be defeated – and he probably is – it will first be by voters, not juries.  

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  Robert M, Solow died Friday, at home in Lexington, Mass., at 99. Here is the Wall Street Journal obituary. He inspired everyone who knew him to be a little better, more like him.