Harvard law professor calls for SCOTUS to keep 'astoundingly dangerous' Trump on state ballots

Harvard Law School professor Lawrence Lessig has been a scathing critic of Donald Trump, slamming the 2024 GOP frontrunner as a "pathological liar" and "an astoundingly dangerous candidate for president." But Lessig is also critical of efforts to remove Trump from state ballots via Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, and he laid out some reasons for that position during a Saturday morning, January 6 conversation with CNN's Michael Smerconish.

The Colorado Supreme Court recently ruled that Trump is disqualified from the state's presidential ballot under Section 3, which states that an "officer" who has engaged in "insurrection" is barred from certain government positions. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Trump's appeal, and oral arguments are scheduled for February 8.

Lessig — despite his vehement disdain for the former president — is hoping that all nine justices will vote to keep him on state ballots.

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The Harvard professor told the conservative/libertarian Smerconish, "The Constitution does not give a state judge or a state court the power to remove a federal officer, absent some federal legislation Congress has enacted to describe how that is done. And that conclusion, I think, is pretty clear, and this case should be immediately reversed so that we get on to the political question of whether this man ought to be elected president….The question isn't whether the Constitution authorizes the exclusion; the question is whether it authorizes the exclusion by a state court without any statute from Congress that says, 'This is how you go through the procedure to exclude someone.'"

Lessig went on to tell Smerconish that he hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down the Colorado ruling unanimously, 9-0.

Lessig told Smerconish, "The question is what the Constitution permits a judge to do absent congressional action. The 14th Amendment, Section 5 says it's Congress that shall enforce the 14th Amendment through appropriate legislation…. This is a principle about limiting the scope of judicial power; it's not a principle about limiting the reach of the Constitution."

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