No matter what happens Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments in the case of Trump v. Anderson, Norma Anderson says it’s all been worth it.
The lead respondent in the case to remove Donald Trump’s name from the Colorado ballot based on the 14th Amendment’s Disqualification Clause has endured endless interview requests from reporters from as far away as Germany and Japan.
Still, she said, “Win or lose, I’m still glad I’ve done it.”
In many ways, Anderson is the perfect standard-bearer for this case.
Her Republican roots run so deep she remembers playing crack the whip as a child when the teams were Dewey versus FDR. “I was on the Dewey side,” she said.
She dated the chair of the Young Republicans when she was in college, was a hostess at a reception for Barry Goldwater before he ran for president (“What a gentleman he was!” she reminisced) and was a reliable volunteer in school classrooms and for her kids’ soccer teams.
“You do your civic duty,” she said.
She had a 19-year career as a Colorado legislator and led both houses when her party held the majority, though she never succumbed to slavish party loyalty.
In the 1990s, she voted against a bill wildly popular among Republicans that would outlaw same-sex marriage. She also refused to support a bill to require children to say the Pledge of Allegiance in schools.
She was a Republican, but she said she always believed that meant standing up for what was right.
Then came Jan. 6, 2021.
“After watching Jan. 6 all day, seeing someone trying to overthrow an election, I was appalled,” she said.
“If that isn’t insurrection, I don’t know what is.”
Trump “wanted to overthrow the election and be king,” she said. “Thank goodness the vice president stood his ground on the Constitution. I admire Pence for doing that.”
But Pence’s actions that day were not enough to alleviate her grave fears for the future.
“I’m concerned about our democracy,” she said, so much so that she changed her political affiliation in 2021. She was registered as an independent for about a year before she returned to her Republican roots.
But Trump’s party is not Norma Anderson’s party. She clings to the hope that the Republican Party she has spent her life supporting is not lost forever.
“Our vote is our democracy,” she said. This is non-negotiable.
With the date for arguments in Trump v. Anderson fast approaching, Anderson is hopeful her side will prevail, but she’s hardly naïve.
The 14th Amendment plainly states that anyone who previously took an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in insurrection is disqualified from holding any office, civil or military, at the federal or state level.
Seems pretty clear to Anderson.
But even though guys like Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, John Roberts and Samuel Alito claim to be originalists when it serves their purposes, such as when they’re striking down a woman’s right to reproductive health care, few court observers expect them to respect the clear intentions of the U.S. Senate when it passed the 14th Amendment in 1866.
They’ll be looking for loopholes.
The oddsmakers are putting their money on the court overturning the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision disqualifying Trump from the state’s ballot, but the big question is how convoluted will be their logic.
The credibility of the court already is damaged. I mean, even the State of Texas is ignoring its ruling in the decision allowing the federal government to remove razor wire along the border.
But further eroding public confidence in the institution by delivering a rank political decision with a farcical legal basis could rocket the court deep into the wasteland of irrelevance.
Quite the legacy for John Roberts.
Anderson won’t say where she’ll be on Thursday. The whereabouts of a 91-year-old former Republican luminary must be kept secret for her own protection.
Which says all anybody needs to know about the MAGA movement.
But she’ll be following the arguments closely and is hoping for a speedy decision. Deadlines loom for primary election ballots in several states.
“I’m very happy I’ve done it,” Anderson said. “It does take courage.”
Then the lifelong political activist added shrewdly, “I trust the courts to do the right thing.”
I don’t.
But here’s hoping Norma’s faith is justified.
Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.
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