Constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax on Thursday he doesn't think the decision by the Colorado Supreme Court to keep Donald Trump off the primary ballot there will stand the test of Supreme Court review namely because states have no jurisdiction on constitutional matters.
Further, Dershowitz told "Rob Schmitt Tonight" that only Congress gets to define insurrection, by the power of the Constitution.
"Colorado just said we can make that determination even though Section 5 says you can't," Dershowitz told Schmitt.
Dershowitz was reacting to the court's 4-3 decision Tuesday that cited a rarely used provision of the U.S. Constitution that bars officials who have engaged in "insurrection or rebellion" from holding office.
"I think it will not survive the test of history. I don't think it'll survive the test of Supreme Court review, but nobody knows because the Supreme Court often stays out of political cases," Dershowitz told Schmitt.
"But if I had to make a guess, I would say the court will grant the stay and then hear oral argument and then invoke Section 5 and say, 'Look, if Congress wants to do this, fine; but you can't have state courts do this," he added.
Further, Dershowitz said that what occurred on Jan. 6, 2021, was not an insurrection in the first place.
"And you know there was no insurrection there. There was a public demonstration that got out of hand. That's not an insurrection. We've had insurrections in our history; this was not one of them," he said.
"What is an insurrection? It's not defined, and it should be defined. And only Congress can define it. But the Colorado Supreme Court has no jurisdiction under Section 5 to have anything to say about this Constitutional provision," Dershowitz said.
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