JUST IN: Attorney for Colorado argues Trump is threat to democracy and voters need to be protected from him

Jason Murray argued on behalf of the Colorado Supreme Court before the US Supreme Court on Thursday, stating his belief, and the ruling of the Colorado court, that the state has the right to remove a candidate from the presidential ballot. Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked Murray about the right of the people to decide who they should vote for. 

"What about the idea that we should think about democracy?" Kavanaugh asked. "What do you think about the right of the people to elect candidates of their choice, of letting the people decide that. Because your position has the effect of disenfranchising voters to a significant degree, and should that be something? Does that come in when we think about, should we read Section 3 this way, or read it that way. What about the background principle, if you agree, of democracy?"

"I'd like to make three points on that Justice Kavanaugh," Murray said. "The first is that constitutional safeguards are for the purpose of safeguarding our democracy, not just for the next election cycle, but for generations to come. And second, Section 3 is designed to protect our democracy in that very way. The framers of Section 3 knew from painful experience that those who had violently broken their oaths to the Constitution couldn't be trusted to hold power again because they could dismantle our constitutional democracy from within. And so they created a democratic safety valve.

"President Trump can go ask Congress to give them amnesty by two-thirds vote," Murray said, "but unless he does that, our Constitution protects us from insurrectionists. And third, this case illustrates the danger of refusing to apply Section 3 as written, because the reason we're here is that President Trump tried to disenfranchise 80 million Americans who voted against him, and the Constitution doesn't require that you be given another chance."