
Six days ago, Donald Trump’s lawyers filed a 34-page brief in the Supreme Court. In legal-speak, their brief is called a “petition for certiorari.” It asks the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 4-3 decision by the Colorado Supreme Court banning Trump from the Colorado ballot. (The brief is available, in full, at the Supreme Court website.)
This case presents one of the most important legal and political issues of this century: Whether a state can exclude a national candidate from the state’s ballot on the grounds that he committed a federal crime that he was never convicted of or even charged with.
But the media has largely ignored Trump’s brief. I have not seen a single news report about it. Reporters embarked on crazy endzone dancing when the Colorado decision came out last month, which has apparently left them too woozy and hungover to report on a particular salient fact – namely, that this play is almost certainly under review1 by the real Supreme Court. And initial indications point to the on-field ruling being overturned.
Trump’s brief cites and quotes extensively from the well-reasoned three-justice dissenting opinion in Colorado – another piece of news that was little-reported.