In Tuesday’s bombshell ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court disqualifying President Trump from appearing on ballots there, the judges turned the spotlight onto Justice Neil Gorsuch, quoting him in their ruling and inviting him to stand by one of his previous decisions.

In the ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court found that Mr. Trump was disqualified from appearing on ballots in the state due to his participation in the riots at the Capitol on January 6, which the court found to have been an insurrection.

The court hung its decision, in part, on a ruling Justice Gorsuch made during his time as a rider on the Tenth Circuit Court at Denver, Colorado.

Justice Gorsuch ruled that it is “a state’s legitimate interest in protecting the integrity and practical functioning of the political process” and that this interest “permits it to exclude from the ballot candidates who are constitutionally prohibited from assuming office.”

The earlier case concerned a naturalized American citizen, Abdul Karim Hassan, who had attempted to run for president but was blocked because he was not a natural-born citizen, one of the constitutional requirements to run for the presidency.

The president-elect at the New York County Lawyers Association, Richard Swanson, tells the Sun that the ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court shines a spotlight on Justice Gorsuch but that it may not be enough to get his vote.

“The language of the Colorado Supreme Court certainly seems to be directed at getting Justice Gorsuch’s vote, but it assumes that the 14th Amendment should be construed to apply to presidents, which some scholars of note disagree with,” Mr. Swanson said.

In Mr. Swanson’s opinion, the Supreme Court’s ruling on Mr. Trump’s case could hinge on a number of different factors, including whether the Court considers the events of January 6 an insurrection and whether or not it believes that the 14th Amendment applies to the office of the presidency.

“This provision of the 14th Amendment has never been utilized in this way, and the language is far from definitive,” Mr. Swanson said. “In addition, the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling assumes that Trump in fact led an insurrection, and the Supreme Court of the United States might disagree with that conclusion too.”

The section of the 14th Amendment in question, Section Three, disqualifies anyone who has previously taken an oath of office and engaged in insurrection against America from holding an elected office or serving as an “officer of the United States.”

The 14th Amendment was passed in the wake of the Civil War, and Section Three was aimed at preventing Confederate officials from running for office or serving as officers of the United States. 

The language of the amendment, however, is not specifically tailored to disqualifying Confederates, simply saying that those who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” are disqualified from running for office. The exact mechanism of how disqualification works is also untested.

Some conservative legal scholars, like Steven Calabresi, argue that the president is not an officer of the United States and is thus not disqualified from holding office for engaging in insurrection against America.

Mr. Calabresi’s view is far from unanimous, even among conservative attorneys and legal scholars. The 2020 Republican nominee for Senate at New Hampshire and attorney, Bryant “Corky” Messner, told the Sun that he expects the Supreme Court to find that Mr. Trump is disqualified.

“I think it’s likely that the Supreme Court will disqualify Donald Trump,” Mr. Messner said. “With that being said, I will support whatever the Supreme Court decides.”

Mr. Messner adds that he thinks analyzing the Colorado court’s decision to quote Justice Gorsuch is beside the point, saying that “all this analysis that doesn’t start with Section Three of the 14th Amendment is irrelevant to me here.”

Mr. Messner also said that he’s concerned about what might happen should the Court does disqualify Mr. Trump, saying that “Donald Trump and the MAGA movement will not go away quietly.”

“The Republican Party and the leaders in the Republican Party need to demonstrate some courage here and start talking about supporting whatever the U.S. Supreme Court decides,” Mr. Messner said. “I’ve heard people on the right say that they ought to be able to vote for whoever they want — that’s not the Constitution”

One point that Mr. Messner wanted to illuminate in terms of the Colorado court’s ruling is that Mr. Trump and his legal team presented evidence that both January 6 was not an insurrection and that Mr. Trump did not engage in it, evidence that the court in Colorado found unconvincing.

“I don’t want to speculate what might happen, but given what happened on January 6, I think it’s reasonable to be concerned about what might happen if the U.S. Supreme Court disqualifies Trump,” Mr. Messner said.