‘Uncharted territory’: Legal experts react to ‘monumental’ Colorado decision that Trump’s ‘inciting’ of Jan. 6 disqualifies him from presidency — plus, a namecheck of Justice Gorsuch

Donald Trump, Neil Gorsuch

Former President Donald Trump (left) speaks on Jan. 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File), (right) Justice Neil Gorsuch arrives at the U.S. Capitol ahead of the inauguration of President Joe Biden on January 20, 2021 (Photo by Melina Mara/POOL/AFP).

The Colorado Supreme Court’s Tuesday 4-3 decision disqualifying former President Donald Trump from being president again, under the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment, sparked wide-ranging reactions from legal experts who see the U.S. Supreme Court’s involvement as inevitable. For that reason, the state high court’s noticeable namechecking of Neil Gorsuch and the justice’s 2012 decision from when he was a U.S. Circuit judge on the Tenth Circuit also grabbed attention.

The Colorado decision, which is stayed at least until Jan. 4 in the event that the case heads to SCOTUS (as the Trump team reportedly confirmed will happen), concluded that the former president’s “inciting” Jan. 6 speech was not protected by the First Amendment, that he “engaged in insurrection,” that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is “self-executing” (with no need for Congress to enforce), and that ruling Trump should be removed from the ballot was “not precluded” by the political question doctrine.

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