Arizona should join states like Colorado attempting to bar Donald Trump from the ballot

When Donald Trump was running for office in 2016, he said if he was elected his judicial nominees would “all (be) picked by the Federalist Society,” a far-right organization of conservative and libertarian lawyers.

Essentially, he did just that.

By 2020, Trump had appointed 51 judges to the federal appeals court, and all but eight had ties to the Federalist Society.

His Supreme Court selections were close to the organization as well.

Trump believes in these people. (Or at least in the support he gets from the people who fund the organization.)

His record demonstrates that he agrees with their philosophy, with their unvarnished interpretation of the Constitution.

Even they say that Trump can't run

I mention this only because two professors who are active members of the society, William Baude of the University of Chicago and Michael Stokes Paulson of the University of St. Thomas, produced an article for the University of Pennsylvania Law Review declaring that, under the 14th Amendment, Trump “cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office.”

Right now, there are efforts in Colorado, Minnesota and other states to ban Trump from the ballot.

Arizona should do the same.

It is a slam dunk if you believe the words in the Constitution are truthful, authoritative and indisputable.

It's spelled out in the 14th Amendment

The mechanism to keep treasonous supporters of the Jan. 6 insurrection from ever holding office is stated, simply and succinctly, in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. It reads:

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

If the Constitution means what it says — and we mean what we say about the Constitution — none of those who participated in the attack on the Capitol, and none of those who gave them “aid or comfort,” would ever again have anything to do with the U.S. government.

As part of its 845-page final report, the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack suggested that former President Donald Trump should be banned from holding office.

Offering 'aid or comfort' is a disqualifier

The two Federalist Society professors agree, saying in a summary of their article that the amendment “covers a broad range of conduct against the authority of the constitutional order, including many instances of indirect participation or support as ‘aid or comfort.’ … It covers a broad range of former offices, including the Presidency. And in particular, it disqualifies former President Donald Trump, and potentially many others, because of their participation in the attempted overthrow of the 2020 presidential election.”

Those “many others” mentioned by the professors should include Arizona Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, who certainly gave aid and comfort to the insurrectionists who attempted to stage a coup in 2020. There are other Arizona office holders and political candidates as well who should be barred.

Why Trump should be booted: From Arizona's ballot

The professors don’t even believe the justice system needs to be involved.

They say that the conditions of the 14th Amendment “can and should be enforced by every official, state or federal, who judges qualifications.”

'Donald Trump cannot be president'

Every state of the union should be pushing this notion.

It … is … not … complicated.

Professor Baude summed it up in an interview with The New York Times, saying, “When we started out, neither of us was sure what the answer was. People were talking about this provision of the Constitution. We thought: ‘We’re constitutional scholars, and this is an important constitutional question. We ought to figure out what’s really going on here.’ And the more we dug into it, the more we realized that we had something to add.”

He concluded, “Donald Trump cannot be president — cannot run for president, cannot become president, cannot hold office — unless two-thirds of Congress decides to grant him amnesty for his conduct on Jan. 6.”

Supreme Court's Federalists will decide

What people are trying to do in Colorado, Minnesota and other places is to follow the Constitution.

It is what Arizona should be doing.

Experts analyzing the efforts to keep Trump off the ballot believe it will wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Imagine that.

A court stacked with Federalist Society judges, individuals who swore an oath to the Constitution and who claim to believe that it is what it says.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona should join states trying to bar Trump from the ballot