Laws targeting one individual are explicitly unconstitutional. In a scenario where SCOTUS overturns Colorado (which is unlikely) they couldn’t just get around that by passing a law that says “Trump can’t run”.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 3:
No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
In fact, let’s try this from another angle altogether: if it were legal for a state to bar an individual (or entire political party, since that’s not a protected class!), then how long would it be before Florida or Texas passed a law that outlawed Biden/Democrats from entering elections in the state? If that were legal, the entire system would collapse into chaos, even more than it is already.
Again, this assumes SCOTUS overturns CO. That seems unlikely, so it’s probably a moot point, but in that scenario, there is no end-run around the ruling.
And a court judgment is not a bill. Ruling about a specific individual’s case is precisely what courts are for. By your logic, every court ruling against a defendant would be a bill of attainder.
As for an ex post facto law, that’s a law that’s passed after the conduct it makes illegal, to be applied retroactively. The 14th amendment is over 100 years old.
Well Acksually…
Could you explain the relevance? Because I’m not seeing it.
Laws targeting one individual are explicitly unconstitutional. In a scenario where SCOTUS overturns Colorado (which is unlikely) they couldn’t just get around that by passing a law that says “Trump can’t run”.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 3:
More context here:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-1/section-9/clause-3/bills-of-attainder
In fact, let’s try this from another angle altogether: if it were legal for a state to bar an individual (or entire political party, since that’s not a protected class!), then how long would it be before Florida or Texas passed a law that outlawed Biden/Democrats from entering elections in the state? If that were legal, the entire system would collapse into chaos, even more than it is already.
Again, this assumes SCOTUS overturns CO. That seems unlikely, so it’s probably a moot point, but in that scenario, there is no end-run around the ruling.
And a court judgment is not a bill. Ruling about a specific individual’s case is precisely what courts are for. By your logic, every court ruling against a defendant would be a bill of attainder.
As for an ex post facto law, that’s a law that’s passed after the conduct it makes illegal, to be applied retroactively. The 14th amendment is over 100 years old.
I was specifically referring to Alto’s suggestion that the Colorado legislature could pass a law that says their electors can’t vote for Trump.
Oops, I missed that. In case it wasn’t obvious.