Not a single sitting Democratic member of Congress, governor, state legal professional basic or secretary of state filed an amicus transient with the Supreme Court docket — submissions from events not concerned within the case to inform the court docket the place they stand — advocating for Trump to be eliminated.
And there was no organized effort by Democrats on Capitol Hill to weigh in on the case. Particular person members usually mentioned they felt that the case had benefit, however met the dearth of get together response with a shrug.
Democrats’ makes an attempt to remain out of the 14th Modification challenge could also be meant to keep away from the looks that they’re politicizing the legislation and the courts. However the potential disqualification of a number one presidential candidate is inherently a political and authorized query, and Democrats’ comparative silence has been asymmetrical, with Republicans keen to leap into this fray particularly.
Democrats have lengthy grappled with the query of the right way to interact on Trump’s authorized troubles — even when it’s a political course of and never within the courts. When some Democrats clapped after Trump’s first impeachment, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was
fast to shush them, for instance.
“The courts will have a look at it on its deserves and decide. I don’t suppose Democrats weighing in would actually change the result,” Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who co-chaired the Jan. 6 committee, informed POLITICO. He added that whereas there are “professional points with Trump being on the poll” primarily based on that investigation, he would “defer that call to particular person states.”
President Joe Biden has
demurred when requested in regards to the challenges, and the Division of Justice has pointedly not weighed in on the case in any respect.
Republicans flooded the court docket with briefs in assist of Trump — however nearly nothing got here from Democrats to argue in favor of the opposite aspect. The truth is, there have been extra former Republican elected officers weighing in towards Trump than Democrats supporting the authorized argument he needs to be disqualified.
“I can’t actually say,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) mentioned when requested why there no Democratic caucus briefing. “You’d should ask the oldsters who usually lawyer up on these issues. However it shouldn’t be like a political soccer.”
One of many few Democrats to wade into the general authorized battle is Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat who present in
December that Trump was ineligible and barred him from the poll in her state. (Her choice was paused by a state court docket pending a ruling within the Colorado case, and he or she didn’t file a short to weigh in on the Supreme Court docket case.)
However Democratic officers have largely been completely absent from the authorized course of. A handful of secretaries of state punted on the problem, saying
it’s the function of the courts to make that call as they confronted public stress to disqualify him. And amid a push in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom in December
tried to throw chilly water on it, saying “in California, we defeat candidates on the polls. Every little thing else is a political distraction.”
“Maybe it’s only a matter of being accustomed to getting kicked within the enamel by the Supreme Court docket,” mentioned Devon Ombres, the senior director for courts and authorized coverage at liberal suppose tank The Middle for American Progress and a former senior council to Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on the Hill. “It’s a matter of not simply jinxing the rattling factor, possibly?”
One elected Democrat who did write to the court docket, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, declined to truly take a aspect on the authorized deserves. As an alternative, she wrote her transient solely to say that “for the great of our democracy” the court docket ought to challenge a remaining ruling a technique or one other and never kick the choice down the street.
