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The Colorado Supreme Court, which barred former President Donald J. Trump from the states primary ballot, is composed of seven justices who were all appointed by Democratic governors.

Justices on the court serve 10-year terms, and Democrats have held the governors office for the last 16 years, so all of the current justices were appointed by that party, with five appointed by one man: John Hickenlooper, who was governor from 2011 to 2019 and is now one of the states U.S. senators.

Still, the chief justice, Brian Boatright, is a Republican, while three justices are Democrats and three are listed in voter registration records as unaffiliated with a party.

And the court was not of one mind on whether Mr. Trump should appear on the ballot. The decision was 4-3, with the court ruling that the 14th Amendment forbade Mr. Trump from holding office because he had engaged in insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, when his supporters overran the Capitol. (Of the four who voted with the majority, two are registered Democrats and two are not registered with a party.)

The decision was harshly criticized by supporters of Mr. Trump, who said that keeping him off the ballot was undemocratic. The head of Colorados Republican Party, Dave Williams, said out-of-control radicals in Colorado would rather spit on our Constitution than let the people decide which candidates should represent them in a free and fair election.

But some observers of the court say that it is notably nonpartisan, in part because of how the justices are named. The governor must choose from a pool of nominees recommended by a bipartisan commission. The majority of the members on that commission are not lawyers. Still, most are chosen by the governor.

Its perceived to be way less political than the U.S. Supreme Court, and I think its true that its way less political, said Chris Jackson, a lawyer in Denver whose practice includes election law. There arent really conservative and liberal justices in the way that we describe the U.S. Supreme Court justices.

The decision on Trump on Tuesday was not the first time the court has removed a political candidate from the ballot. In 2020, it ruled that a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, Michelle Ferrigno Warren, could not appear on the primary ballot because she had not collected enough signatures from voters. A lower court had been more lenient, citing the Covid-19 pandemic, but the states highest court disagreed.

Two years earlier, in 2018, the court removed a Republican candidate from a ballot. It found that Representative Doug Lamborn, a longtime congressman from Colorado Springs, had not collected enough valid voter signatures to be on the ballot. In that case, however, a federal court disagreed and eventually reinstated Mr. Lamborn, who won the election.

Mr. Lamborn said in a statement that he hoped Mr. Trump would have similar success in the U.S. Supreme Court.

This wrongful decision was made by the same court that unconstitutionally removed my name from the ballot years ago & had to be corrected by a federal court, Mr. Lamborn wrote on the social media platform X.

Like the U.S. Supreme Court, the Colorado Supreme Court can choose whether to hear cases that are appealed to it, and, in some of the states biggest recent cases, the Colorado high court has declined.

That was true in two cases in which the U.S. Supreme Court eventually weighed in: Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, in which that court sided in 2018 with a baker who had refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, and a case this year, Counterman v. Colorado, in which the high court said that the First Amendment put limits on laws banning online threats.

Doug Spencer, a law professor at the University of Colorado, said the states high court appeared, in its Trump decision, to try to walk a tight line. It had ruled to remove Mr. Trump from the ballot but put a pause on its own ruling.

If the case is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, as is expected, then Mr. Trumps name would, under the state courts order, remain on the ballot until the Supreme Court decides the case. But the Colorado secretary of state said on Tuesday that she would follow whatever court order is in place on Jan. 5, when the state must certify ballots for the primary election.

In staying its own decision until the Supreme Court weighs in, Professor Spencer said, the state court had teed it up in just the right way to be decided by the nation's top court.

He added: Theyre very thorough in terms of explaining themselves, whether or not you agree with them.

Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

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Colorado Supreme Court Was Narrowly Split on Barring Trump From Ballot - The New York Times

In April 2022, during his Senate primary campaign in Pennsylvania, John Fetterman spoke enthusiastically about his unqualified support for Israel and said he did not consider himself a progressive when it came to his views on the Jewish state.

Whenever Im in a situation to be called on to take up the cause of strengthening and enhancing the security of Israel or deepening our relationship between the United States and Israel, Im going to lean in, Mr. Fetterman, then the lieutenant governor, told Jewish Insider at the time. When it came to far-left Democrats who harshly criticized Israel, he added, I would also respectfully say that Im not really a progressive in that sense.

So as the left has turned against Mr. Fetterman in recent weeks, branding him #GenocideJohn for his unequivocal support of Israels fierce retaliation against Hamas in response to the groups Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, the senator has dug in.

Once a darling of progressives who positioned himself as a champion of the underdog and highlighted his association with Senator Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist from Vermont, Mr. Fetterman now has a less rosy view of the left and says the label of progressive does not fit him anymore.

What I have found out over the last couple years is that the right, and now the left, are hoping that I die, Mr. Fetterman, who suffered a near-fatal stroke during his campaign, said in an interview on Wednesday. There are ones that are rooting for another blood clot. They have both now been wishing that I die.

Mr. Fetterman has rejected calls for a cease-fire, filled the walls of the hallway outside his Senate office with photos of the hostages taken by Hamas, draped himself in an Israeli flag and even waved one provocatively in the face of pro-Palestinian demonstrators. A large Israeli flag even hangs on the wall behind his desk, positioned to be visible in his Zoom shots.

In forcefully inserting himself into an issue that has exposed a deep divide in the Democratic Party as the death toll in Gaza has risen, Mr. Fetterman has shattered any lasting perception that he is a progressive warrior in lock step with the left.

He has also publicly encouraged Democrats in recent days to engage in border negotiations with Republicans, talks that have outraged progressives who object to efforts to clamp down on migration through the United States border with Mexico.

I dont think its unreasonable to have a secured border, Mr. Fetterman said in the interview, conducted over Zoom. I would never put Dreamers in harms way, or support any kind of cruelty or mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people. But its a reasonable conversation to talk about the border.

It all marks a shift in Mr. Fettermans image, even if the progressive label was never a perfect fit for him. In 2018, Mr. Sanders called Mr. Fetterman an outstanding progressive as he endorsed his campaign for lieutenant governor. Mr. Fetterman, an early backer of Mr. Sanderss 2016 presidential bid, used to introduce himself at political events as a Democrat and a progressive.

The Pennsylvania senator said he still aligns with many progressive goals, including a $15 minimum wage, universal health care, legalizing marijuana and abolishing the Senate filibuster.

But he said he no longer relates to the overarching label of progressive especially as the left has become more interested in demanding what he described as purity tests.

Its just a place where Im not, he said. I dont feel like Ive left the label; its just more that its left me.

Im not critical if someone is a progressive, he added. I believe different things.

Such stances have given his former critics some of whom routinely called him a vegetable after his stroke and accused him of pushing a radical socialist agenda a disorienting sense of whiplash.

What multiverse is this? the right-wing website Breitbart posted on social media, with a link to Mr. Fettermans recent appearance on CNN where he claimed that TikTok was responsible for giving younger Americans a warped view of the Israel-Hamas war.

Mr. Fetterman is shedding the progressive label at the same time his health has markedly improved, after his 2022 stroke and a six-week stay this year at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for clinical depression.

He still suffers from some auditory processing problems that are a side effect of the stroke, but his speech is notably improved even from a few months ago, and he has emerged ready for action.

These days, the freshman senator who arrived in Washington struggling to interact with colleagues and journalists appears to relish the limelight and the give and take with the press. He said he tries to ignore the criticism he sees online, which he said creates a warped and twisted perspective, and instead focus on the positive interactions with voters who approach him at coffee shops for selfies and to chat. And while he still maintains that his goal is to provide his party with a reliable Democratic vote in the Senate, Mr. Fetterman thrives in moments when he can position himself as an independent thinker.

He said he is mystified that anyone on the left would have expected a different response from him on Israel. Im not really sure what part of any of this would be a surprise if anyones been paying attention, Mr. Fetterman said.

Still, the backlash has been blistering. Demonstrators have shuttered streets in front of his district offices demanding his support for a cease-fire. A group of former campaign staff members wrote an anonymous letter calling his support for Israel a gutting betrayal of what they had believed to be his values. And progressives have expressed frustration that Mr. Fetterman, of all people, has rallied to support Israel rather than the Palestinians whose plight they have made their cause.

Melissa Byrne, who worked on Mr. Sanderss 2016 presidential campaign and is now an organizer for liberal causes, accused Mr. Fetterman of trying to have it both ways, claiming to be a progressive only when it helped him electorally.

Hes here for the vibes, she said. You should at least be honest and say, Hey, I called myself a progressive because we wanted to raise more money. We needed to win.

Ms. Byrne said she always had her doubts about Mr. Fettermans progressive bona fides, ever since he proclaimed Pennsylvania to be the Saudi Arabia of natural gas and said it was impossible to win the state in a presidential election while supporting a ban on fracking.

These days, she said, hes aligning himself with Likud, the right-wing governing party in Israel, and its leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Why is he not critiquing Netanyahu for not cracking down on settler violence? she asked.

In the interview, Mr. Fetterman was unchastened. He was tempered in criticizing Mr. Netanyahu, whose governments failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attacks has led to backlash at home and abroad, and who has come under criticism from President Biden for his response.

Im not suggesting that he is ideal any more than someone might think Trump is ideal, Mr. Fetterman said. But thats the leader that we have.

Mr. Fetterman, for his part, said he has always prided himself on passing his own internal common sense test before bowing to the demands of his party or his base. Outside his Senate office, for instance, he displays a flag honoring American prisoners of war and another proclaiming L.G.B.T.Q. pride. Im pretty sure Im the only senator that has both, he said. Cant it be possible that its really appropriate to stand for both?

But it is on the issue of Israel where Mr. Fetterman is as flummoxed by members of the left as they are by him.

I do find it confusing where the very left progressives in America dont seem to want to support really the only progressive nation in the region that really embraces the same kind of values I would expect we would want as a society, he said of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

As for the gripes of anonymous former members of his campaign staff, Mr. Fetterman said that its difficult to respect somebodys opinion if theyre not going to attach their name to it. None of his current aides have raised concerns about his political stances, he said.

Still, Mr. Fetterman said he is not completely surprised that he is not satisfying the same Democratic voters who were outraged in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clintons candidacy after Mr. Sanders left the race.

This bizarre purity thing, where people were offended that I was embracing Secretary Clinton when we have Trump on the other side? Mr. Fetterman said. How did that work out for you?

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Fetterman, Breaking With the Left on Israel, Rejects 'Progressive' Label - The New York Times

(December 20, 2023 / JNS)

Democrats are more firmly supportive of Israels war against Hamas in Gaza than some recent national polling has suggested, according to a survey released on Tuesday.

The new poll, commissioned by Democratic Majority for Israel, found that Democrats believe the United States should support Israel over Hamas by a wide margin: 63% to 6%, which is nearly identical to the margin for U.S. registered voters (67% to 5%.)

The study surveyed 1,637 registered voters in the United States from Dec. 7-12 and had a margin for error of plus or minus 2.42%.

Asked if they prefer a ceasefire with Hamas immediately, or only after the terrorist group was disarmed and dismantled, nearly half (48%) of Democrats supported the latter, with less than a third (29%) calling for immediate ceasefire.

Mark Mellman, president of Democratic Majority for Israel, whose research group conducted the poll, told JNS that other polls suggesting outsized Democratic support for a ceasefire or high favorability for Palestinians are based on faulty polling and poorly-worded questions.

A lot of this has been not polling, but guesswork, Mellman said. If you just say to people, Should there be a ceasefire? Well, who would be against that? Why would anybody be against that?

But if you say, Should there be a ceasefire if it leaves the hostages in Hamass hands or leaves Hamas in control of Gaza? People say No. There shouldnt be a ceasefire under those circumstances.

Critics of Israel have seized on polls purporting to show that a majority of Americans support a ceasefire to demand that the Biden administration pressure Israel to halt its campaign against Hamas.

The majority of Americans are with us in supporting immediate de-escalation and a ceasefire, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) wrote on social media on Oct. 20, citing a Data for Progress poll. Its time for President Joe Biden and Congress to support our ceasefire now resolution to save lives.

Pollsters have consistently found that majorities of Americans support a ceasefire in general terms, with that support particularly strong among Democrats and younger American adults.

An Economist/YouGov poll released earlier in December found that 78% of self-identified Democrats would support a future ceasefire, and a Harvard/Harris poll last week found that 67% of registered voters aged 18-24 favored an unconditional ceasefire that would leave everyone in place, the only age group in which a majority of respondents took that position.

Those figures, combined with former-President Donald Trumps recent polling leads over Biden in several 2024 battleground states, has led some within the Biden administration to urge the president to soften his public messaging on Israel.

On Thursday, Politico reported that Vice President Kamala Harris has told Bident to express more sensitivity towards Palestinian civilians.

Publicly, many administration officials have balanced support for Israels right to self-defense and condemnation of Hamas in the aftermath of Oct. 7 with statements disapproving of the number of Palestinian civilians killed during Israels operations against Hamas.

Its clear that the conflict will move, and needs to move, to a lower-intensity phase, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a press conference Wednesday. We expect to see, and want to see, a shift to more-targeted operations, with a smaller number of forces, thats really focused-in on dealing with the leadership of Hamas, the tunnel network and a few other critical things.

Blinked added that the suffering of civilians in Gaza was gut wrenching and that he personally was very, very deeply affected by the humanitarian toll.

Mellman doesnt buy the argument that Biden and down-ballot Democrats need to triangulate on Israel to have success at the ballot box.

Theres really no evidence to support the proposition that President Bidens support for Israel is doing him any electoral damage whatever, he said. If anything, I think his support for Israel is a net positive.

Youll find there are more people that are likely to vote for Biden because of his pro-Israel stance than to vote against him because of that, Mellman said, citing swing states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada, where Jewish voters make up about 2-3% of the electorate, while Muslim voters account for 1% or less.

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Guesswork, Mark Mellman says of polling that Democrats favor ceasefire, Palestinians - JNS.org

Kellyanne Conway, who served as a high-ranking political adviser in the Trump administration, sparked outrage on social media for making a joke about what she views as Democrats' nonchalant attitude toward abortion.

Conway took the jab at Democrats while on Fox News' Outnumbered on Wednesday.

"I think Democrats wake up every morning and they look at the calendar on the iPhone and it says January 6th. The date never changes. And then they get into an electric vehicle and go get an abortion," Conway said.

Conway was mocking popular Democratic stances, including a woman's right to health care, which includes abortion; how the use of electric vehicles could help curb climate change; and that the U.S. Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, was an attack on U.S. democracy and that those responsible for the siege should be held accountable.

Newsweek reached out to Conway via online form for comment Wednesday.

Ron Filipkowski, editor in chief of liberal news site Meidas Touch, reacted to Conway's Fox News remarks in a post on X, formerly Twitter. "Most people have to try really hard to be this reprehensible, but I think it comes naturally to her," Filipkowski wrote.

Eric Garcia, senior Washington correspondent for the Independent, wrote on X, "Man, I'm old enough to remember when Kellyanne Conway used to coach Republican men not to sound like absolute pigs when talking about abortion to women."

X user Dianne Callahan wrote, "January 6, 2021 will be in every history book and imbedded in our minds forever. Kellyanne Conway's cavalier attitude is quite repulsive. The electric car and abortion comment is so low class."

Others on social media reacted to Conway's remarks with mockery.

Representative Robert Garcia, California Democrat, shared the clip of Conway and wrote on X, "Wow I literally did all of this yesterday."

"It's true. I get an abortion every morning," freelance journalist Laura Bassett wrote on X.

Rex Huppke, columnist for USA Today, wrote on X, "This is accurate. I personally have had 354 abortions so far this year."

Conway was former President Donald Trump's campaign manager during his successful run in 2016, then his senior counselor during his presidential term. Her ex-husband, George Conway is a vocal critic of Trump.

She was on Fox News Wednesday to criticize the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to bar Trump from the state's 2024 GOP primary. The court ruled Tuesday that, under the 14th Amendment, Trump was banned from holding public office due to his actions during and related to the January 6 siege on the Capitol.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Kellyanne Conway Sparks Outrage With Snark About Democrats and Abortion - Newsweek

Some who know Lapid, who served as Israels interim leader for the final six months of 2022, have been struck by his formality on the phone and the absence of the lively and confiding mien that American Democrats can find disarming.

Despite his deep, historic misgivings about Netanyahu, he wanted to make clear that there was real unanimity of purpose when it comes to the campaign in Gaza, said Senator Chris Murphy, a top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was delivering a message about the imperative of defeating Hamas.

When I asked Murphy if Lapid had actually mentioned his rivalry with Netanyahu, he quickly clarified that Lapid had not.

Im seeing that as the context, the senator explained. There was no predicate to the message he was delivering.

One person familiar with Lapids conversations with Democrats said they represented a kind of whip effort to reinforce support for Israel among people who are skeptical of the government and closer to his value set.

They obviously have very little love for Netanyahu, very little faith in Netanyahu, this person said of Senate Democrats. Lapid says to them: This is not about the government. This is about Israels security.

Yet the 60-year-old Lapid, a centrist former television journalist, is a canny enough communicator to know it is possible to send multiple messages at once.

If he is using these phone calls to express solidarity in word, Lapid is also drawing a contrast with Netanyahu in deed.

When Lapid posts on X about his phone calls with Democratic senators as he has done with Murphy, Elizabeth Warren, John Fetterman, Chris Van Hollen and others the implicit question to Israeli voters seems obvious enough. Wouldnt it be nice to have a leader who wasnt toxic on one side of the American political spectrum?

And to Senate Democrats: dont they wish they had, in Israels prime minister, a partner that they could trust?

The problem for everyone involved is that its unclear either fantasy might become real anytime soon.

The Israel-Hamas war has become a fault line in Democratic politics that will outlast any one Israeli prime minister, with scenes of Chechnya-like devastation in Gaza incensing a generation of young activists and, increasingly, Democratic officeholders. The upcoming Democratic primary season is already looking like a monthslong proxy fight between pro-Israel groups and left-wing organizations that have mobilized against the war.

Joe Biden, who joined the Senate the same year as the Yom Kippur War, may be the most unreservedly pro-Israel Democratic president we see for some time. Though he has rebuked Israel for its indiscriminate bombing in Gaza, Bidens commitment to the Israeli cause is not in question. Even his own vice president, Kamala Harris, has voiced more ambivalence in private, POLITICO reported last week .

In Israel, meanwhile, voters appear ready to discard Netanyahu but there is no sign that they are turning leftward on matters of peacemaking and national security. They appear fed up with Netanyahus political cynicism, alleged corruption and extremist allies; they doubt his competence and blame him for failing to stop the Hamas attack in the first place. But those same voters overwhelmingly support the military mission to wipe out Hamas.

Current polls suggest Israelis are far less inclined to embrace Lapid as an alternative to Netanyahu, than Benny Gantz, the former IDF chief of staff who now sits in the war cabinet. He is the most popular politician in Israel because he is the face of its response to the sadistic barbarism of 10/7.

Yair Lapid has absorbed criticism of the Gaza campaign, allowing Democrats to share their concern about the military effort without echoing it himself. | Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

The American left may not forgive him for it. That might only make Israelis admire him more.

All of which makes the line of communication between Lapid and the Democratic Party a precarious enterprise. If he were to shift an inch or two further to the right, to accommodate his own domestic politics, or Democrats were to tilt a few degrees to the left in deference to parts of their political base, the whole project could become untenable.

In a way, Lapid allies suggest, that is the point to show that he can do the acrobatic kinds of political diplomacy that Netanyahu does not even attempt. It is not a new argument for Lapid, who as foreign minister met in 2021 with the progressive American group J Street and left-wing lawmakers like Barbara Lee and Jamaal Bowman, a move that drew harsh condemnation from Netanyahu and other Israeli conservatives.

Hes proud of the fact that he can talk to people who arent totally in the tent, said a second person familiar with Lapids outreach.

In his more recent phone calls with Democrats, Lapid has absorbed criticism of the Gaza campaign, allowing Democrats to share their concern about the military effort without echoing it himself. He has notably not spoken with Israels most outspoken critics in Congress, like Bowman or Bernie Sanders, focusing instead on more reliably pro-Israel Democrats like Murphy, who have expressed tempered dismay about the war.

Recalling his conversation with Lapid, Murphy said he told the opposition politician that he was worried Israels military strategy was not matched to the goal of a lasting victory over Hamas.

We had a candid conversation about my concerns regarding civilian casualties, he said.

But candor, detached from shared policy ideas and the power to enact them, only goes so far.

This, too, may be an unintended message of Lapids phone calls.

The Yesh Atid party leader is himself a test of the link between Democrats and Israel. He is the most prominent Israeli elected official who has called for Netanyahu to step down, supports a Palestinian state and cares about Israels relationship with the Democratic Party. He told my colleague Jamie Dettmer in November that Israels future depends on returning to being a country thats led by liberal values.

Lapid is also a man who backs the Gaza campaign to the hilt, described most of the dead there as Hamas terrorists in a Sky News interview and has consistently trashed Obama- and Biden-backed negotiations with Iran as dangerously misguided.

No other plausible Netanyahu successor is a more palatable package for Democrats. Several others are more hardline by a substantial margin.

The trajectory of the U.S.-Israel relationship may depend on mainstream Democrats willingness to reconcile themselves to that reality.

There may be a future date when Netanyahu is long gone, the 10/7 attack is no longer a singular event in Israels political consciousness and American progressives have begun to forget the images they have seen from Gaza in recent weeks when a tighter and more comfortable bond can grow again between Democrats and their counterparts in Israel.

Then, it may be easier to create new versions of the anecdotes Biden so often repeats, about his encounters in another century with Golda Meir, the Israeli leader whom Democrats could happily admire.

For now, delicate phone calls between distant political cousins on the center-left may be as good as it gets.

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Israel's Opposition Leader Has a Message for Democrats. They May Not Like It. - POLITICO