OCYSF to honor Ann Meyers Drysdale, Janet Evans and April Ross

• December 19, 2023

The Orange County Youth Sports Foundation will honor Orange County Olympians Ann Meyers Drysdale, Janet Evans and April Ross at its annual banquet Jan. 10 at the Hyatt Regency Irvine.

The OCYSF has awarded more than $1 million in scholarships and financial aid to Orange County high school athletes.

Meyers Drysdale was a multisport athlete at Sonora High School. She went on to become a four-time All-America basketball player at UCLA and played for the USA team in the 1976 Olympics. Meyers Drysdale has had a long career as a broadcaster and as a pro basketball executive.

Evans of El Dorado High School won four Olympic gold medals in swimming, competing in the 1988 and ‘92 Summer Games. She set multiple world records including in the 400-meter, 800-meter and 1,500-meter freestyle. Among her post-swimming career work is as a leader of the LA28 Olympic Committee.

Ross was a girls volleyball national player of the year at Newport Harbor High. She has won Olympic gold, silver and bronze medals in beach volleyball and had a long and successful pro beach volleyball career. Ross was the national college volleyball player of the year at USC.

Veteran sportscaster Bob Costas is the master of ceremonies.

For information on table purchases or sponsorship opportunities email OCYSF board member Mark Todd at mark.todd@compass.com or call 949-514-000. Information about the foundation is available at ocysf.org.

​ Orange County Register 

War memorials carry the blood and pain of history into the present. They should never be removed.

• December 19, 2023

A 71-year-old Vietnam veteran today is about the same age as a Civil War veteran was in 1914.

Certainly no one in public office today would entertain a suggestion to tear down the Vietnam War memorial. The deeply affecting monument is made up of two black granite walls inscribed with the names of over 58,000 service members who didn’t come home from that controversial war. The memorial was completed in 1982, just over 40 years ago. Imagine, if you can, that 60 years from now, politicians might decide that the Vietnam War memorial is inappropriate or offensive, and then take a wrecking ball to it.

That would be a desecration. Nothing could be more dishonorable than to erase an earlier generation’s recognition of the terrible costs of a horrific war.

But on Monday, the U.S. government began to tear down a century-old Civil War memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. The demolition work was halted hours later when a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order, an action that resulted from a lawsuit filed by a group called Defend Arlington. Their complaint charged that the U.S. Army, which runs the cemetery, rushed its decision to remove the monument without first completing an environmental impact report, and that the demolition risked damage to nearby graves and headstones.

The monument is the Confederate Memorial, also known as the Reconciliation Monument. It was dedicated in 1914, when a veteran who was 18 years old at the start of the Civil War would have been 71.

The well-known and respected sculptor was Moses Jacob Ezekiel, born in Richmond in 1844. Ezekiel was a cadet at the Virginia Military Institute during the Civil War (the first Jewish cadet ever to attend VMI), and as a cadet he fought on the Confederate side in the 1864 Battle of New Market. Ezekiel died in 1917 and is buried at the base of the monument he created.

Reconciliation after the Civil War took many decades. In 1900, when the war and its casualties were within the memory of any American older than 40, Congress authorized the burial of Confederate remains at Arlington National Cemetery in a special section. In 1906, Secretary of War William Howard Taft authorized the United Daughters of the Confederacy, an organization of Southern women, to raise money for a memorial in that section of the cemetery. That’s the monument now slated for removal.

The Confederate Memorial stands accused of showing “a nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.” There are 32 life-size figures on the towering bronze pedestal. According to the final report of “The Naming Commission,” chartered by Congress in 2021 to remove names and symbols of the Confederacy from “assets” of the Department of Defense, “Two of these figures are portrayed as African-American: an enslaved woman depicted as a ‘Mammy,’ holding the infant child of a white officer, and an enslaved man following his owner to war.”

It would be appropriate and decent to inform visitors to Arlington National Cemetery that the Confederate Memorial was constructed during a period of time in the first half of the 20th century when certain offensive characterizations and stereotypes were widely seen in popular culture. The Naming Commission’s report mentions “Gone With the Wind.” The list is much longer than that.

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What’s never appropriate or decent is to drive a crane over the hallowed ground of a national cemetery to tear down a war memorial.

The Naming Commission recommended that the Army “should consider the most cost-effective method of removal and disposal of the monument’s elements,” as if it was a pile of trash.

That’s a revolting way to refer to a monument to war veterans, regardless of what anyone thinks of the war or the monument.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who has opposed the removal of the monument, said he plans to move it to the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park in the Shenandoah Valley. But the monument belongs where it is, in Arlington National Cemetery, standing somberly above the graves of the fallen in our reunited country.

War memorials carry the blood and pain of history into the present. They should never be removed.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley

​ Orange County Register 

Alaska flight attendants picket John Wayne Airport, LAX over wages

• December 19, 2023

Alaska Airlines flight attendants picketed John Wayne Airport and LAX on Tuesday, Dec. 19, saying they’re underpaid and not being compensated for the time they spend boarding, deplaning and waiting between flights.

The employees, represented by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, announced they will begin gathering strike authorization votes on Jan. 8 amid stalled contract negotiations.

Tuesday’s pickets and announcement are happening in conjunction with similar events at Alaska Airlines hubs across the country. Thousands of flight attendants were expected to turn out for a “nationwide day of action.”

United Airlines flight attendants, also represented by AFA-CWA, picketed LAX last week for the second time over the same issues. Their rally was also part of a nationwide day of action demanding that United management negotiate a “fair” labor contract.

Nearly 970 Alaska flight attendants are based out of LAX, although many fly in and out of John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Ontario International Airport and Hollywood Burbank Airport.

“The mood is not good,” Alaska AFA President Tim Green said. “We’re tired of this disrespect from airline management. We’re committed to fight for our fair share.”

Green said Alaska flight attendants earn a starting wage of $26,946 a year — about 20% less than competing airlines pay. And they’re not getting paid when they’re not flying but are still on the clock, he said.

“Most of us live in Southern California, and it’s not enough to keep up with the high housing costs,” Green said. “Our wait between flights can sometimes be two to four hours. We need to be paid, whether we’re in the air or on the ground.”

They’ve been in contract negotiations with the airline for more than a year, but talks have stalled over management’s “inadequate economic proposals,” flight attendants said.

Just months after saying the flight attendant proposals were not “economically feasible,” Alaska management announced plans to purchase Hawaiian Airlines for $1.9 billion, the union said.

“The truth is, Alaska management can afford an industry-leading contract,” said Jeffrey Peterson, president of the Alaska chapter of AFA-CWA. “We will not accept terms that leave us falling even further behind the industry for years to come.”

In a Tuesday posting on its website, Alaska Airlines said it provided an updated economic offer in October that would put its flight attendants at or near the top of the industry in most areas, including pay.

The proposal includes an immediate 15% pay increase and market rate adjustments to keep them in line with new contracts at other airlines, management said.

“Contrary to union narratives, we do pay flight attendants for boarding time through a pay mechanism that was negotiated with the union in previous contract cycles,” the airline said. “We remain open to alternative pay structures proposed by the union during negotiations.”

Alaska added that its acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines “does not impact our ability or desire to reach an agreement.”

Timothy Trueman, AFA-CWA’s council vice president for Los Angeles and San Diego, said flight attendants are putting in lots of hours they’re not being paid for.

“Even though their wages might seem high, they only get paid once the door closes on takeoff to when the plane rolls into the gate,” he said. “So at the end of the day, they might have worked 13 hours, but only gotten paid for seven.”

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​ Orange County Register 

Lakers head back on the road looking to get out of post-tournament slump

• December 19, 2023

Anthony Davis stopped short of calling the Lakers’ play from over the last week a “championship hangover.”

“I mean, we’re not losing by 20,” he said after Monday’s home loss to the New York Knicks. “We’re in every game. We’re fighting. Competing. Playing hard.”

Added Davis: “I don’t think that it’s one of those.”

But after the defeat to the Knicks – putting the Lakers (15-12) at 1-3 since winning the In-Season Tournament last weekend in Las Vegas – there was an awareness that they haven’t been as sharp as they were during the tournament, which they went undefeated in (7-0) to win the inaugural NBA Cup.

And they aren’t alone, with the Indiana Pacers – the team they beat to win the tournament – being 1-4 since leaving Las Vegas.

While Coach Darvin Ham made clear he isn’t one to make excuses, there was an acknowledgment of the factors that have provided his team with adversity.

Since Thanksgiving, the Lakers have played nine of 12 games outside of Los Angeles – including the tournament championship victory over the Pacers on Dec. 9 that didn’t count in the regular-season standings.

“Las Vegas wasn’t a long flight for us, but it’s just, obviously being within your normal schedule, it’s going to have an effect, be it positive or negative,” Ham said. “I thought it was more positive than negative for sure. But that said, there is a travel schedule.

“No one’s going to feel sorry for you. Everybody goes through it, man. It’s a marathon of a league.”

And with the Lakers’ upcoming three-game road trip, which starts on Wednesday in Chicago against the Bulls (11-17) before matchups against the Minnesota Timberwolves (20-5) on Thursday and Oklahoma City Thunder (17-8) on Saturday, more road-weariness is expected.

“It’s tough,” Davis said. “For the whole month of December, we’ve really been on the road – and are gonna be on the road for probably the rest of December. But there’s nothing we can really do about it. It’s the schedule. Just gotta take care of our bodies and get some guys back hopefully within the next couple of games. But it’s definitely a mental challenge going on the road as much as we are right now.”

The Lakers have also been beset by health problems.

Davis, LeBron James and Jarred Vanderbilt have all missed a game because of injury in the last week. D’Angelo Russell and Christian Wood have recently missed a game because of a non-COVID illness. Ham also wasn’t at Sunday’s practice because of a non-COVID illness.

The Lakers are still waiting on the return of guard Gabe Vincent, who has only played in four games and hasn’t played since Oct. 30 because of a left knee effusion (swollen joint).

Ham said before Monday’s loss that Vincent “has come a long way” and that there are “a few more conditioning boxes” to be checked before the team makes the decision to make him active.

“We got to get some rest and get healthy,” James said. “We want to finish out December the right way. There is no rest for the weary. We just got to mentally stay locked in and get ready for Chicago first, who got a big win [Monday] against Philly in Philly.”

But the adversity they’re facing – road-heavy stretches and varying player health/availability – is life in the NBA.

And it’s on the Lakers to figure out how to navigate the next 1½ weeks before a home-heavy stretch in January.

“We’ve seen what we can do when we’re 100 percent healthy,” Davis said. “Just gotta get there. Just keep fighting, honestly. I mean, there’s nothing more we can say or do. Just take on the challenge. Every team is battling something. And we still have to find ways to win.”

LAKERS AT BULLS

When: Wednesday, 5 p.m. PT

Where: United Center, Chicago

TV/Radio: Spectrum SportsNet, 710 AM

​ Orange County Register 

Does California have a right-to-die law? Ask the Lawyer

• December 19, 2023

Q: Dad is still of good mind. He can reason, make decisions, but has been very depressed and is physically in a bad way. He has an illness that is gradually depriving him of motor control and he is expected to die within 6 to 12 months. He has expressed a desire to end his life. Is there a right to die in California?

R.G., Carson

Ron Sokol

A: My thoughts are with you, your family and your dad. It is difficult, if not impossible, to grasp what all must be involved in that decision.

What I can indicate is that in 2016, the California End of Life Option Act went into effect and was then revised in 2022. The law permits a terminally ill adult, who is a California resident, to request a medication from his or her physician that will bring an end to his or her life. There is a form for the individual to fill out, which is to be witnessed and which requires certain information. In addition, there are attending physician forms that must be submitted.  A very helpful link online about the process and the forms is available through the California Department of Public Health: cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CHSI/Pages/End-of-Life-Option-Act-.aspx. I encourage you to review that link. Further, consultation with counsel or another qualified professional is prudent as well.

Q: I am having an operation that probably is not life threatening, but among the items they ask me to answer is whether I have an advanced health care directive. Please explain what this is and why I am to answer.

Y.A., Lakewood

A: There invariably is quite a bit of paperwork for you to sign, and in some instances initial, before undergoing surgery. Part of this relates to risks attendant to the surgical procedure (including if you are anesthetized). Some, like the advanced health care directive, tie into those risks, but also provide useful and very critical information to the facility, staff and physician(s).

The advanced health care directive is addressed at California Probate Code 4701. Here is a quote from that section which speaks for itself: “You have the right to give instructions about your own physical and mental health care. You also have the right to name someone else to make those health care decisions for you. This form lets you do either or both of these things. It also lets you express your wishes regarding donation of organs and the designation of your primary physician.”

The Advanced Health Care Directive Form at Section 4701 can be utilized by you as is, or modified, or you can use a different form, but bottom line it covers “directives” about your health, both physical and mental. The surgery facility, staff and physician want and need to know (if not be assured) you have that in place.

Ron Sokol has been a practicing attorney for over 40 years, and has also served many times as a judge pro tem, mediator, and arbitrator. It is important to keep in mind that this column presents a summary of the law, and is not to be treated or considered legal advice, let alone a substitute for actual consultation with a qualified professional.

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​ Orange County Register 

US producing more oil than any country in history

• December 19, 2023

By Matt Egan | CNN

As the world grapples with the existential crisis of climate change, environmental activists want President Joe Biden to phase out the oil industry, and Republicans argue he’s already doing that. Meanwhile, the surprising reality is the United States is pumping oil at a blistering pace and is on track to produce more oil than any country has in history.

The United States is set to produce a global record of 13.3 million barrels per day of crude and condensate during the fourth quarter of this year, according to a report published Tuesday by S&P Global Commodity Insights.

Last month, weekly US oil production hit 13.2 million barrels per day, according to the US Energy Information Administration. That’s just above the Donald Trump-era record of 13.1 million set in early 2020 just before the Covid-19 crisis sent output and prices crashing.

That’s been helping to keep a lid on crude and gasoline prices.

US output – led by shale oil drillers in Texas and New Mexico’s Permian Basin – is so strong that it’s sending supplies overseas. America is exporting the same amount of crude oil, refined products and natural gas liquids as Saudi Arabia or Russia produces, S&P said.

“It’s a reminder that the US is endowed with enormous oil reserves. Our industry should never be underestimated,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group.

Record-shattering US production is helping to offset aggressive supply cuts meant to support high prices by OPEC+, mainly Saudi Arabia and Russia. Other non-OPEC oil producers including Canada and Brazil are also pumping more oil than ever before. (Brazil is set to join OPEC+ next year.)

The strength of US output has caught experts off guard. Goldman Sachs analysts on Sunday cut their forecast for oil prices next year. The bank said the “key reason” behind the lowered forecast is the abundance of US supply.

Global demand for crude oil is set to hit a record in 2024 – but it will “easily be met” by the growth in supply, according to S&P’s projections.

Gas prices near $3

All of this has helped to keep oil prices relatively in check. After flirting with $100 a barrel earlier this year, crude has since tumbled back to the $70 to $75 range.

Energy prices have jumped this week after BP halted shipments through the Red Sea due to security concerns. Still, US oil is trading below $74 a barrel, well below where it was when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7.

Gas prices neared the psychologically important level of $4 a gallon in September. But prices at the pump have since fallen sharply, helping to ease inflationary pressure on the US economy.

The national average for a gallon of regular gas stood at $3.08 a gallon on Tuesday, down from $3.14 a year ago, according to AAA.

‘Biden’s war on energy’

Despite record-setting production, Biden has come under fire from Republicans for his energy policy.

In September, the House subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources held a hearing titled: “Biden’s War on Domestic Energy Threatens Every American.”

Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska warned in a floor speech that the Biden administration’s war on energy is a “gift to our adversaries.”

Earlier this month at a GOP presidential primary debate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed to “open up all of our domestic energy for production” to “lower your gas prices.” DeSantis made a similar comment at the CNN town hall last week.

That the US is about to produce more oil than any country ever before undercuts the argument that Biden has waged a war on American energy.

Presidents don’t set oil production

Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s Biden policies that have paved the way for record US oil production, nor that the White House would rush to take credit for that.

McNally, a former energy official to former President George W. Bush, said there isn’t that much presidents can do about US oil production, short of taking drastic emergency powers.

Unlike OPEC nations, the United States oil output is largely set by the free market.

“It’s not like President Biden or any president has a dial in the Oval Office to increase production,” McNally said.

Instead, the spike in US output has been driven by smarter and more efficient operations by oil companies. Energy firms have figured out ways to squeeze more and more oil out of the ground – often without increasing drilling dramatically.

The shale oil revolution has been driven by new drilling techniques that have unlocked new resources. But this technique can be more complex and requires vast amounts of water.

‘Kicking and screaming’

Yet McNally said the White House has been forced to shift its tone on fossil fuels from the climate-focused stance of 2020 and early 2021 to something more neutral.

Last year, gas prices spiked above $5 a gallon following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which set off a panic in the oil market. Biden urged US oil companies to pump more oil – exactly the opposite of what climate scientists are calling for.

In March, the Biden administration even approved the Willow oil drilling project, a controversial ConocoPhillips drilling venture in Alaska that had been stalled for decades. That green light came in the face of deep criticism from climate groups worried about the environmental and health risks.

“President Biden has been dragged kicking and screaming from his initial keep-it-in-the-ground strategy towards a more pragmatic policy,” McNally said, noting the administration was “mugged by the reality of high gas prices and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

​ Orange County Register 

Irvine-based Masimo’s CEO open to settling Apple Watch rift

• December 19, 2023

By Mark Gurman and Caroline Hyde | Bloomberg

Irvine-based Masimo Corp. Chief Executive Officer Joe Kiani, head of the medical device maker that has put Apple Inc.’s smartwatch on the brink of a US ban, said he’d be open to settling with the company.

The executive, speaking Tuesday on Bloomberg TV, said the “short answer is yes,” when asked if he’d settle, but he declined to say how much money he’d seek from Apple. Kiani said he would “work with them to improve their product.”

“They haven’t called,” he said. “It takes two to tango.”

Company look-back: Masimo, Philips end patent dispute with $300 million settlement, partnership

The International Trade Commission ruled earlier this year that the Apple Watch violates two Masimo patents related to blood-oxygen sensing. The ITC imposed an import ban on the Ultra 2 and Series 9 models that goes into effect Dec. 25.

The restriction only applies to Apple’s own retail channels. Best Buy Co., Target Corp. and other resellers can continue to offer the products. But it’s put Apple in the unusual situation of having to pull a big moneymaker off its shelves during the all-important holiday season. The Apple Watch generated about $17 billion in revenue in the last fiscal year.

“These guys have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar,” Kiani said.

The medical industry veteran said he last spoke to Apple in 2013, when the iPhone maker discussed acquiring his company or hiring him to help with its in-house technology efforts. Any settlement talks would need to include an “honest dialogue” and an apology, he said.

An Apple spokesperson said that the ruling from the ITC is erroneous and should be reversed. The company plans to appeal the decision.Still, Apple is already preparing for the ban. It announced plans to pull the devices from its e-commerce site Thursday and will do the same at its physical retail stores on Christmas Eve.

Kiani called that move a “stunt” to pressure the Biden administration to veto the order. The US president has the ability to step in and cancel an ITC injunction.

“This is not an accidental infringement — this is a deliberate taking of our intellectual property,” Kiani said. “I am glad the world can now see we are the true inventors and creators of these technologies.”

He accused Apple of hiring more than 20 of his engineers — and doubling their salaries in some cases — to get them to work on similar medical technology for its watch.

“Apple could be an example of how to do things right and do things well, and they didn’t have to steal our people,” Kiani said. “We could have worked with them.”

In a statement, Apple said its teams “work tirelessly to create products and services that empower users with industry-leading health, wellness and safety features.”

“Apple strongly disagrees with the order and is pursuing a range of legal and technical options to ensure that Apple Watch is available to customers,” the Cupertino-based company said. Apple also has said it believes Masimo began the legal fight to clear the market for its own smartwatch, which the iPhone maker said is a knockoff of its device.

A lawsuit Masimo filed against Apple over the issue ended this year with a federal court jury unable to reach a decision. Six of the seven jurors sided with Apple in the case.

The tech giant is working on a software update for the Apple Watch that it believes will resolve the ITC dispute, Bloomberg News previously reported.

Kiani pushed back on that idea in the interview Tuesday.

“I don’t think that could work — it shouldn’t — because our patents are not about the software,” he said. “They are about the hardware with the software.”

Asked if the import ban could be avoided, Kiani said that if Apple manufactured the watch and its components in the US, no such import ban would be possible. In contrast, he said, Masimo builds its technology in the US.

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​ Orange County Register 

Colorado Supreme Court bars Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s ballot in 2024

• December 19, 2023

Donald Trump cannot appear on Colorado’s primary ballot, the state’s Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a legal challenge that has gained national notice as the former president seeks the 2024 Republican nomination.

The Colorado Supreme Court, in a 4-3 opinion, found that Trump is barred under a provision of the 14th Amendment that prohibits people who engaged in insurrection from running for office.

“We conclude that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three (of the 14th Amendment), it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot,” the court’s majority wrote in its opinion. “Therefore, the Secretary may not list President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, nor may she count any write-in votes cast for him.”

It’s possible the losing side in Tuesday’s ruling could appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court. Legal experts said that was more likely to happen if Trump was disqualified from the ballot.

The state Supreme Court stayed its ruling until Jan. 4, the day before the state’s deadline to certify the primary ballots, in case an appeal is filed — in which case the state will be required to include Trump’s name on the March 5 primary ballot unless the federal justices order otherwise.

The legal challenge was brought under the Civil War-era Constitutional amendment. A group of Colorado Republican and unaffiliated voters, working with the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed suit in early September against Trump and Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat and outspoken Trump critic, in state court, but the legal battle has always been between the plaintiffs and Trump’s legal team.

The plaintiffs took advantage of a Colorado law that allows voters to challenge a candidate’s eligibility. The suit invoked the third section of the 14th Amendment, which was aimed at keeping Confederates out of federal office. It bars people from holding off if they took an oath to support the U.S. Constitution and then engaged in insurrection or rebellion.

Democratic governors appointed all seven members of the Colorado Supreme Court. During oral arguments this month, the justices peppered both sides with questions that took direct aim at the 14th Amendment’s applicability to the presidency and more esoteric legal questions.

Which Constitutional oath — and which offices it covers — was a sticking point for the Denver District Court judge who ruled against the ballot challenge earlier.

Judge Sarah B. Wallace ruled in November that, while she found Trump did engage in insurrection surrounding U.S. Capitol breach and riot on Jan. 6, 2021, the amendment did not specifically bar insurrectionists from the presidency. The amendment specifies members of Congress, electors of the president and people who hold office under the United States or the individual states, but doesn’t single out the office of the president by name.

“Part of the Court’s decision is its reluctance to embrace an interpretation which would disqualify a presidential candidate without a clear, unmistakable indication that such is the intent of Section Three,” Wallace wrote in her ruling.

That ruling prompted both sides to appeal the ruling to the state’s highest court.

The petitioners argued it would “yield absurd results” if the amendment barred insurrectionists from every federal office but the highest one. Attorneys for Trump, meanwhile, argued Wallace made “multiple grave jurisdictional and legal errors,” including by finding Trump engaged in insurrection. His public comments around Jan. 6, they argued. were protected under the First Amendment and didn’t call for violence.

His legal team also questioned if the court, which held a five-day trial in October, was the proper venue for constitutional litigation and the establishment of “new, unprecedented, and unsupported legal standards.”

While Colorado isn’t the only state to hear 14th Amendment challenges to Trump’s candidacy, this case made it much further through the legal process than any other.

A similar lawsuit in Minnesota stalled when its high court ruled that political parties have discretion over their primary ballots — leaving open the chance for a challenge to resume if Trump wins the Republican nomination. In Michigan, a lower court judge ruled that it’s up to Congress to decide whether Section 3 applies to Trump.

Dozens of lawsuits challenging Trump’s eligibility have been filed in several states, with none succeeding so far. Among other cases with significant backing, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in November that Trump could remain on the ballot there because political parties have discretion over their primary ballots.

And a Michigan judge has ruled that Congress should decide if Section 3 applies to Trump. That ruling was appealed Monday.

It’s still possible that one of the cases, including Colorado’s, could end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never ruled on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

​ Orange County Register