Brett Kavanaugh Asks Lawyer Arguing for Trump Ballot Ban If ‘Disenfranchising Voters’ Is Anti-Democracy
Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked the lawyer arguing in favor of the Colorado Supreme Court’s barring of former President Donald Trump from the ballot in the Centennial State if his argument violated democratic principles during oral arguments at the United States Supreme Court on Thursday.
“In trying to figure out what section three [of the 14th Amendment] means and to the extent it’s elusive language or vague language, what about the idea that, we should think about democracy, think about the right of the people to elect candidates of their choice, of letting the people decide, because your position has the effect of disenfranchising voters to a significant degree,” began Kavanaugh. “And should that be something, does that come in when we think about, should we read section three this way or read it that way? What about the background principle — if you agree — of democracy?”
“I’d like to make three points on that, Justice Kavanaugh,” replied Jason Murray, the lawyer arguing that Trump should be excluded from the ballot. He continued:
The first is that constitutional safeguards are for the purpose of safeguarding our democracy, not just for the next election cycle, but for generations to come. And second, section three is designed to protect our democracy in that very way. The framers of section three knew from painful experience that those who had violently broken their oaths to the Constitution couldn’t be trusted to hold power again because they could dismantle our constitutional democracy from within.
And so they created a democratic safety valve. President Trump can go ask Congress to give him amnesty by two thirds vote, but unless he does that, our Constitution protects us from insurrectionists. And third, this case illustrates the danger of refusing to apply section three as written, because the reason we’re here is that President Trump tried to disenfranchise 80 million Americans who voted against him, and the Constitution doesn’t require that he be given another chance.
Watch above via MSNBC.
