The recent ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot has even Trump's staunchest critics calling foul. It has been called the disenfranchisement of millions of Trump supporters. Trump's legal team has stated that they will immediately file an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Republicans are outraged by the decision, so much so that now, according to Breitbart, GOP lawmakers in three states are introducing bills that would remove President Joe Biden from the ballot - states that will be key on election night 2024.
Pennsylvania State Rep. Aaron Bernstine (R), Georgia State Rep. Charlise Byrd (R), and Arizona State Rep. Cory Mcgarr (R), all say that the idea behind their action is to "fight back" against cases like the one in Colorado against Trump, which they described as "lawfare" but their ultimate goal isn't to remove candidates from the ballot, but to have all candidates, including Trump, on the ballot. In a joint statement, they announced:
“We are joining forces to introduce legislation to REMOVE Joe Biden from the ballot in Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. The absurdity of radical Democrat judges removing Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado will be a stain on the American political system for decades. By their very own interpretation of the law, Joe Biden is 100% not eligible to run for political office. Democrats’ insane justification to remove Trump can just as easily be applied to Joe Biden for his ‘insurrection’ at the southern border and his alleged corrupt family business dealings with China. Colorado radicals just changed the game and we are not going to sit quietly while they destroy our Republic. To be clear, our objective is to showcase the absurdity of Colorado’s decision and allow ALL candidates to be on the ballot in all states."
The idea that Joe Biden should be removed from ballots did not take long to surface after the Colorado ruling was announced. Rep. Anthony Sabatini (R-FL) took to X and stated, "Remove Biden from the Florida ballot now" in all caps. Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) appeared on the Fox News Channel with host Laura Ingraham and said,
"Seeing what happened in Colorado tonight makes me think, except we believe in democracy in Texas, maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot for allowing eight million people to cross the border since he's been President, disrupting our state, far more than anyone else has done in recent history."
In reality, any attempts to remove Joe Biden from ballots in any state would be met with the same outcome that the Supreme Court will likely hand down regarding the Colorado ruling. But moves like this now beg the question, is this where things are headed? Because Americans are so severely politically divided, that election maneuvering comes down to a grade school game of tit-for-tat? You kicked our guy off the ballot, so now we are kicking yours off? Yes, there is a very good argument to be made, that that game is useless, and does nothing positive to move the electoral process along.
However, that argument dovetails into the next one, that Republicans are better than that. Let's not sink to their level. The sad fact is, that an ideal election process for Republicans would be, to have election day, no mail-in ballots, no early ballots, no dropboxes, and absentee ballots would be reserved for the disabled, those who would not be in their home districts on election day, and the military. That's not the idea entertained by Democrats, have we not learned that the debate over "sinking to their level" has all but passed? No one is advocating outright cheating, but Republicans have to not only learn to do what Democrats do with getting out the vote as well, but we need to do it better.
We can argue whether the you-remove-our-guy-we-remove-yours game is right or wrong, but Republicans should also be learning that in some cases, dealing with Democrats is a lot like dealing with terrorists. The attacks of 9/11 taught us that you cannot negotiate with terrorists. You must speak to them in a language they understand. So the ultimate goal with these state lawmakers, as they stated, isn't to get Joe Biden off the ballot, but to get the idea that Republicans see very valid reasons why he should be disqualified as a presidential candidate out there, and what those reasons are.
Whether these bills would go anywhere or not, Democrats would do well not to ignore them. That and the fact that these State Reps. are from key swing states that Joe Biden would need to win reelection. In the immortal words of Sheriff Buford T. Justice, "That's an attention-getter."