Break the Silence, Free Congo / by Alexandria Shaner and François Kamate

_{^{Butembo, DRC | During a peaceful protest march against plans to put oil and gas blocks in the DRC’s Virunga up for public sale, we also called on the world to turn its gaze on the ecological transition that is taking place on the blood of the Congolese people. | Photo: XR Rutshuru}}

As violent militias rampage across the country, activists in the DRC are urgently calling for an end to Rwanda’s aggression and for a green transition that puts justice first, dismantling colonial exploitation once and for all. François Kamate, a young Congolese activist, shares his experience and offers pathways to solidarity

_{Reposted from Znet}

Rutshuru, Democratic Republic of Congo | There are deadly links between war, the plunder of resources, and climate breakdown. Blood red stains follow their concurrence across the map from Iraq, to Amazonia, to Gaza – no inhabited continent is unmarked. And nowhere are these links more devastatingly clear than in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where M23 militias financed by the Rwandan government, which is in turn funded by the EU, UK, USA, and others, are committing mass murder and ecological destruction.

The DRC receives little attention in mainstream media and is usually portrayed, if at all, as a poor nation with a “complicated”, conflict-riven backstory. But this framing omits the catalyst for the region’s violence since its colonization – resource robbery.

“The conflict, which has persisted in the east of the DRC for almost 30 years, and is the deadliest since the Second World War, is mainly economic,” explains Nobel Laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege. Since 1996, more than 10 million people have been killed, with countless more being displaced, raped, or forcibly recruited (even as children) into armed groups. “The link between exploitation and the illegal trade in minerals is recognized as a root cause.”

From this brutal context, activists in the DRC are calling for the international community to immediately stop funding Rwanda’s aggression and to hold all who are complicit accountable. Refusing to abandon their right to a future, they are urgently calling for a green transition that puts justice first, not profit, and that dismantles colonial exploitation once and for all.

One of these young activists, François Kamate, spoke with me from the heart of the crisis in Eastern DRC. Our interview explores François’ experiences and organizing, as well as the current security, humanitarian, and ecological crises in the DRC.

_{^{The Congo Basin, which extends over a forested area of around 3 million kilometers, is currently threatened by a major oil project. We brought together students from Beni in Eastern DRC to shed light on this issue. #SaveVirunga | Photo: XR Rutshuru}}

Please introduce yourself and describe how you became an activist.

My name is François Kamate and I am a young climate and human rights defender in the DRC. Currently, I’m not studying due to the recurrence of armed conflict in my province of North Kivu since the end of 2022. In this context of violence, I initiated a local chapter of Extinction Rebellion, XR Rutshuru, to organize and mobilize young volunteers through non-violent actions to demand participatory and responsible governance of protected areas in the DRC.

Through other associated movements such as Amani Institute ASBL, where I am a co-founding member, I try to help community members rebuild themselves psychologically despite the traumatic ordeals they undergo on a daily basis. Amani Institute ASBL is a socio-cultural movement of young volunteers working to promote a culture of peace and grassroots community development in Eastern DRC. We’ve been operational in the province of North Kivu since 2016, with over 500 young volunteers. The head office is in the rural commune of Rutshuru with sub-delegations throughout the region.

We organize psychodrama-style participatory forums (theaters) to dissuade young people from joining the armed groups that swarm the region. Especially, we try to empower women survivors of sexual violence and young mothers abandoned by their husbands. This is a common problem as many young men join militias or become destitute simply for lack of work. In response to increasing numbers of internally displaced people in the region, we also organize volunteers to help the displaced draw water and provide training on how to combat water-borne diseases.

My motivation for initiating both groups stemmed from our community’s traumas – in particular, the unprecedented humanitarian tragedy coupled with the effects of global warming that are already being acutely felt. I challenged myself to dissuade young people from joining armed groups, and instead to work together to create positive change in the community.

***_{^{François Kamate, climate & human rights defender from North Kivu province, DRC}}***

The DRC is an extremely resource-rich nation yet has suffered a long history of colonialism, economic imperialism, and extractivism. As global finance gears up for “green growth”, the DRC’s resource wealth continues to attract violence, resource robbery, and ecological destruction. Could you talk more about some of the campaigns you’re involved in that fight for climate justice in this context?

Over the past several years, I’ve participated in campaigns like Fossil Free Virunga, Decolonize Virunga, and Fossil Free DRC. We have had a dual approach of organizing outreach and dialogue inside communities, since the authorities and extractive corporations are never transparent with the people. Once communities have access to information about the effects of extractive projects and about who does and does not benefit from them, we then help empower them with skills and support in nonviolent resistance as they stand up for their rights. It’s about communication and empowerment starting where we live and joining together.

I am currently involved in the #SaveVirunga campaign. We organize non-violent and peaceful activities to pressure the Congolese authorities, including President Félix Tshisekedi, to cancel tenders for the illegal sale of 27 oil blocks and 3 gas blocks located in vulnerable protected areas. This includes Virunga National Park, one of the oldest national parks in Africa whose conservation provides livelihoods for over 5 million people through fishing, livestock and agriculture. It should be noted that this sale is being pushed through by government authorities in violation of Congolese conservation laws.

But corruption and resource robbery is not limited to national borders. Extractivism is a trans-national project, so we must also organize internationally. Oil companies such as Total Enérgie, Alfajiri, Sympion Red Power, as well as mining and tech firms have shown that they are fine with keeping the Congolese people in the climate chaos we are experiencing as long as they have access to cheap and plentiful resources.

In May, we held a joint rally with XR activists in Germany and DRC simultaneously to highlight how the Congolese people are being exploited by tech companies for natural resources. An Apple shop in Berlin was spray-painted, while more than 200 activists rallied outside under banners of #BreakTheSilence. At the same time, activists marched through Butembo in the DRC, calling for Virunga National Park to be protected from oil and gas extraction, and for the world to recognize that an ecological transition cannot be smeared with the blood of the Congolese people.

_{^{Extinction Rebellion activists and scientists rally in Germany and DRC simultaneously to highlight how the Congolese people are being exploited by corporations for their natural resources. | Photo: Extinction Rebellion}}

Describe the escalating security and humanitarian situation in the region and how that has affected you and your work?

This work is ever more challenging as it is ever more urgent. The security and humanitarian situation around our regional capital, Goma, has now gotten so bad that we are no longer able to organize activities there. Fear is gaining ground among the population. Nobody knows what might happen. We manage to get together with fellow activists to follow what’s going on.

The humanitarian situation is extremely alarming, with the fighting between the Congolese army (FARDC) and Rwanda-backed rebels (M23) causing the regional population to flee to Goma. It has further aggravated a chronic humanitarian crisis in the region, which has been plagued by recurrent armed violence for three decades. Some 7 million people have fled the fighting directly, and are living in makeshift sites on the outskirts of Goma in conditions of extreme poverty. These internally displaced people have no shelter, drinking water, food, sanitation, or clothing and have been largely abandoned by international humanitarian organizations.

Even after fleeing their homes, people are not finding safety. On May 3, after taking nearby Rubaya for its mineral reserves, M23 dropped bombs on IDP camps in Mugunga/Goma, killing displaced civilians. Armed bandits commit a number of atrocities in the outskirts and on the streets of Goma. Robberies, killings, murders and kidnappings of civilians are documented almost every week.

Unfortunately, the perpetrators are never arrested or identified by the security services. M23 militias now occupy and administer three of the six territories in North Kivu province (Rutshuru, Masisi, and Nyirogongo). Goma itself is suffocating as the villages that supply it with food are occupied by militias and traffic is not operational.

_{^{XR Rutshuru visited a site for displaced persons in the east of DRCongo. We planted a few trees to immortalize the day, but also and above all as a reminder of the importance of a healthy environment in a context of crisis and violent conflict, and as a guarantee of lasting peace. | Photo: XR Rutshuru}}

What is your view of domestic and regional politics in relation to the current crises and to ongoing extractivism?

With these few sentences, I’d like to say that the Congolese people are fed up. And to repeat that the ecological transition should not be made on the blood of the Congolese people. The DRC’s resources have been profitably exploited by foreign corporations and co-opted local elites for decades, while local communities receive no benefit and are further destabilized. This is not development, this is looting.

Domestically, we need our national authorities to make a great effort to ensure security and peace for all Congolese people. While the international and regional community should stop being hypocritical by on one hand condemning M23 violence and lamenting poverty yet striking profitable deals with these same looters and their partners, or by engineering resource control under the guise of security. The blood of millions of Congolese people, innocently spilled, demands justice.

I deplore the national and regional policy on everything that is happening in the DRC. Nothing has been done to bring social and distributive justice to all the Congolese people from independence to the present day. Already mowed down by repeated wars, rampant poverty, mass unemployment among young people, disease, lack of community infrastructure, etc, the Congolese people have been left to fend for themselves.

What is inadmissible is the fact that in the current crisis, only the average Congolese is suffering enormously, while regional and national leaders are enriching themselves on the backs of the people. This must stop. Justice means shared happiness between people without distinction.

Another component deserves mention here as well – this is about breaking the silence. Mainstream media has consistently failed to cover the crises we face, and certainly has failed to name the true causes of our decades long suffering: neo colonial structures of global finance and trade, neoliberal policy, and extractivism. Instead, racist and incomplete narratives occasionally grace the headlines, if at all. Yes, internally we suffer from corruption and intercommunal violence – but they are symptoms, even features, of these oppressive systems. We suffer all the benefits of capitalism, but will no longer be silenced.

***_{^{Demonstration of the women leaders of Tshopo, DRC | Image: LuchaRDC}}***

You mentioned foreign intervention for security. What is public opinion about international and regional military interventions that have been active in the DRC in the name of peacekeeping, such as UN (MONUSCO), East African (EACRF), and Southern African (SADC) troops?

In fact, external military interventions in the DRC, mainly in the eastern part of the country, have already shown their limits to the point that everyone is wondering exactly why they are in the DRC in the first place. Since these forces have been in the Congo, the situation has remained the same. Populations are being massacred close to their military bases without the slightest intervention on their part, which puzzles everyone.

_{^{XR activists outside the UK Parliament protest the financing of violence in the DRC. The hand gesture, used by Congolese protesters to call out inaction of international and regional powers, represents being silenced with a gun to your head. Photo: @XRebellionUK}}

There’s a black hand behind what’s happening in the DRC, especially regarding illicit exploitation of raw materials (gold, uranium, cobalt, cassiterite, cobalt, zinc, etc). There are people and corporations benefiting from resource robbery while external military intervention hasn’t protected the people. There have been many examples where military troops have been deployed in the name of peacekeeping, yet function more like private security for mines and fossil fuel extraction rather than protecting civilians. The beneficiaries are foreign billionaires like Dan Gertler and the country’s corrupt authorities. Capitalists continue to plunder Congolese resources using the Congolese people.

Do you have a message for fellow activists on pathways for solidarity in the current context and in terms of fighting for systemic change? What does being an activist mean for you personally?

My message to fellow activists is to ask for their urgent solidarity in relation to this crisis we are enduring as a result of the unjust aggression by Rwanda and its extractivist partners. Join our call for an end to this hypocrisy on the part of the international community. The blood of the Congolese people has long been shed freely, and this must stop.

_{^{Nonviolent demonstration at Beni to recall the persistence of the massacres in Beni-Ituri, to denounce the ineffectiveness of the Tshisekedi administration to stem them, and to call out the international community for its silence and complicity. | Photo: LuchaRDC}}

Looking ahead, we must join together to pursue a more just world for all people within safe and healthy planetary bounds. What does doing this mean specifically? I can only suggest that you can start where I started. We all can look around our communities and challenge ourselves to work together to make positive changes. Then we need to continue to look around wider and understand how we are all connected, and see that our struggles are also connected. This is how we empower justice.

To be an activist for me means to enable others to achieve common goals. I’m proud to be an activist because I’m convinced that the fight we’re waging is going to change history. What motivates me is indignation at everything we’re going through. I tell myself that I have to work to make communities aware of the problems we face, so that together we can hold our leaders to account and give power to the people.

Solidarity, for me, means for others to try and do the same.

_{François Kamate is a young climate and human rights defender from North Kivu province, Democratic Republic of Congo. He is a co-founding member of Amani Institute ASBL and Extinction Rebellion Rutshuru and is active with various aligned groups and campaigns such as #SaveVirunga and LUCHACongo.org.}

_{Alexandria Shaner is a sailor, writer, and organizer. She is a staff member of ZNetwork.org and active with Extinction Rebellion, Caracol DSA, and the Women’s Rights & Empowerment Network.}

The Cancer Factory / by Lise Olsen

_{^{Hospital (Photo: niskanencenter.org)}}

_{Reposted from MR Online}

Jim Morris, a seasoned investigative journalist from Texas and the founder of the nonprofit Public Health Watch, has a brand new (and scary) book about corporations concealing workplace hazards that literally kill their employees. The book opens with a longtime worker at a Goodyear plant in scenic Niagara Falls, NY who has just discovered blood in his urine—”sheets of it”—and soon learns that he and many union colleagues are all being diagnosed with deadly bladder cancer.

_{^{Jim Morris}}

Morris recently spoke with Texas Observer Senior Reporter Lise Olsen about The Cancer Factory: Industrial Chemicals, Corporate Deception and the Hidden Deaths of American Workers, Beacon Press (January 2024).

Lise Olsen: Your book focuses on a massive scandal at a Goodyear plant, which, according to dozens of lawsuits, knowingly used a DuPont product that exposed workers to deadly toxic chemicals that caused many preventable deaths. Why did you dig into this New York case?

Jim Morris: I first heard about this situation while doing this big chemical safety series in 1998 at the Houston Chronicle. I spent a year looking into vinyl chloride, which is one of the chemicals the Goodyear plant used in Niagara Falls for 50 years. But the bladder cancer death count then was not 78 like it is now.

I have been covering worker health and safety for much of my 46-year career, and many cases are murky: Did this worker’s exposure cause this particular worker’s cancer? This was such a thoroughly documented example of a specific chemical causing a very specific kind of cancer—the same type of cancer researchers had found in animals. Rarely do you see such a strong link.

LO: You write about a union activist named Steve Wodka who later becomes an attorney and represents many of these dying workers in court. (He recently retired). Is there anyone else like him?

JM: There are plenty of Texas lawyers who do “toxic tort” cases, but Wodka is really unusual because he basically was right there and helped draft the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) legislation as a health safety advocate for the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW) starting in his 20s. He was one of the people whom whistleblower Karen Silkwood was planning to meet when she mysteriously died in [a one-car accident] near Oklahoma City in 1974.

As a staffer, he would go into some of their worst plants, see terrible conditions, and demand safety improvements. So, by the time he became a lawyer in the 1980s, he knew all of this firsthand. So no, I’d say there’s nobody quite like him in Texas.

LO: The theme of companies detecting dangers to workers in lab studies and then hiding that research runs through your book. You explore coverups at both the Goodyear plant in New York and an old asbestos plant in Tyler that came to light only after many preventable deaths. The Tyler plant closed, but was the asbestos around it fully cleaned up?

JM: I don’t think it was. And again, Wodka was involved in that for the OCAW. They buried a lot of that asbestos waste in fields outside the plant. I didn’t know if the asbestos is as bad as Libby, MT, [home to a Superfund site near an old vermiculite mine], but I don’t think that area was properly cleaned up.

LO: Besides asbestosis (and mesothelioma) linked to asbestos, are there other cancers or chronic conditions that are just as firmly linked to industrial exposure? Your Public Health Watch team published a report about LA workers dying from silicosis, a dust-related illness. What about that?

JM: Silicosis is like asbestosis—you can’t get it from smoking or drinking or from your parents. You can only get it from silica exposure. They call it a “marker disease” or a “signature disease.” It’s going to be hard for anybody to blame it on smoking or drinking or another lifestyle choice.

In our story, workers were getting silicosis from cutting artificial stone that looks like natural stone for countertops that many people have in their homes. I would be very surprised if the same problem didn’t exist here in Texas with so many immigrant workers [and] ineffective regulations. Back in the 1990s, I found silicosis among Texas workers who blast-cleaned tanks at tank farms. Silica is definitely still a hazard here, and there are probably many more.

LO: Which other companies do you know about that exposed workers (or the public) to chemicals that they knew were highly toxic or known human carcinogens?

JM: When I investigated vinyl chloride in the 1990s, there were a number of damning documents from companies like Dow, Conoco, and Oxy. Pretty much any major company that was using vinyl chloride from the 1950s all the way up to the present pretty much knew how bad this stuff was—and that it could cause a rare form of liver cancer and probably brain cancer… It was very close to a conspiracy.

But I’m not aware of any case as striking as the Goodyear plant in Niagara Falls, which has 78 deaths at what is actually a very small plant. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) was asked to go into the plant in the late 1980s because the [union] local was seeing an alarming number of bladder cancer cases.

LO: PVC plastics plants reported releasing more than 400,000 pounds of vinyl chloride into the air to the Environmental Protection Agency in 2021, and Texas is a major production center. Are the current air quality standards tough enough to protect either workers or the public from this known human carcinogen?

JM: I know the workplace standard was tightened to 1 ppm in 1974—after they found this cluster of rare cancer in Louisville, KY… I don’t know whether experts think that 1 ppm is protective enough.

In terms of environmental exposures, the EPA is reviewing vinyl chloride right now [to see if] the chemical needs to be restricted or banned. It has officially gotten onto the Environmental Protection Agency’s watch list just last fall.

LO: The petrochemical industry in Texas has often tried to pawn off cancer clusters on high rates of smoking, which can cause some similar cancers. How did the lawyer in the Goodyear lawsuits overcome that?

JM: Sheer numbers! Wodka represented virtually all of the bladder cancer cases in court beginning in the 1980s until he retired—more than 30 cases. He sued DuPont, not Goodyear, since Dupont was primarily the supplier for selling what they knew was a known carcinogen. (The workers couldn’t sue their employer under workers’ comp.) Every single case was settled.

LO: You write about how OSHA took shape in the 1970s—and how it was immediately attacked. Early on, it was criticized for failing to pass tough enough standards for known toxins. How is OSHA today?

JM: OSHA is ineffective because it has been starved of resources from the start and really never got proper funding and staffing and saw reductions during the Trump years. Even today, now that it’s more than a half-century old, it is still ridiculously understaffed.

LO: Some say the OSHA standard is still too low for ortho-toluidine, one of the toxic chemicals linked to so many bladder cancer fatalities among workers at the Goodyear plant in New York, as ProPublica recently reported.

JM: The standards are often outdated—and the odds of OSHA inspectors getting to a workplace absent a catastrophic accident or mass fatalities are next to nothing. In fiscal [year] 2022, there was one inspector for every 77,000 workers in this country. Enough to visit each workplace once every 190 years.

LO: What has surprised you since you returned to Texas and founded Public Health Watch? Have conditions for Texas workers improved in the years you worked in Washington, D.C. at the Center for Public Integrity? Or worse?

JM: I left here in 1999 and came back in 2021, so I was gone 22 years. At Public Health Watch, we’ve done much more reporting on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) than on federal OSHA. I would say, at least on the environmental side, things are worse. From our reporting and what I hear from our people, it seems like the TCEQ is doing an even worse job than when I left in 1999, and they seem largely unconcerned with toxic exposures in these communities. There were always pro-business forces at work, but I can understand why people who live in these communities and activists who work with them get thoroughly discouraged.

_{Originally published: Texas Observer}

_{Lise Olsen is a Houston-based senior reporter and editor at the Texas Observer. Lise has investigated many twisted Texas tales, including crooked judges, an unjust execution, massive environmental disasters, myriad cases of corporate and public corruption, and unsolved serial killings. Her reports in three states over 20 years contributed to the prosecutions of a former congressman and a federal judge, inspired laws and reforms, helped solve cold cases, restored names to unidentified murder victims, and freed dozens of wrongfully-held prisoners. Her work is featured in CNN’s “The Wrong Man” (2015) about the innocence claims of executed offender Ruben Cantu and the six-part A&E series on the victims of a 1970s serial killer, The Eleven, (2017). She is the author of CODE OF SILENCE: Sexual Misconduct by Federal Judges, the Secret System that Protects Them and the Women who Blew the Whistle.}

Supreme Court decision on Trump-Colorado ballot case ‘monumental’ for democracy itself, not just 2024 presidential election / Naomi Schalit

_{^{Will Trump be able to stay on the ballot in 2024? | Scott Olson, Getty Images}}

_{Reposted from the Maine Beacon}

Momentous questions for the U.S. Supreme Court and momentous consequences for the country are likely now that the court has announced it will decide whether former president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump is eligible to appear on the Colorado ballot.

The court’s decision to consider the issue comes in the wake of Colorado’s highest court ruling that Trump had engaged in insurrection and therefore was barred from appearing on the state’s GOP primary ballot by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Maine’s secretary of state also barred Trump from the state’s primary ballot, and more than a dozen other states are considering similar moves.

The Conversation’s senior politics and democracy editor, Naomi Schalit, spoke with Notre Dame election law scholar Derek Muller about the Supreme Court’s decision to take the case, which will rest on the court’s interpretation of a post Civil War-era amendment aimed at keeping those who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from serving in political office.

***^{_{The U.S. Supreme Court. | Stefani Reynolds, Getty Images}}***

The Conversation: On a scale of 1 to 10, how big is this?

Muller: In terms of potential impact, it’s a 10. It is excluding a former president from appearing on the ballot for engaging in insurrection.

That’s monumental for several reasons. It’s the first major and material use of this provision of the Constitution since the Civil War. It’s the first time it has kept a presidential candidate off the ballot, much less a former one and the apparent front-runner for the Republican Party nomination.

But on the flip side, what are the odds of that actually happening? That’s more speculative. And so the number is probably less than 10. This was an extraordinary major decision from the Colorado Supreme Court. But you have to temper that by saying, well, there’s a chance it gets reversed, and then Trump appears on the ballot and this mostly goes away.

The Conversation: What are the risks here for the court? Legal scholar Michael W. McConnell at Stanford said in The Washington Post, “There is no way they can decide the case without having about half the country think they are being partisan hacks.”

Muller: This is a binary choice that either empowers the Republican candidate or prevents voters from choosing him. So when you have a choice in such stark, political and partisan terms, whatever the Supreme Court is doing is often going to be viewed through that lens by many voters.

I think it’s a reason why there will be as much effort as possible internally on the court to reach a consensus view to avoid that appearance of partisanship on the court, that appearance of division on the court. If there’s consensus, it’s harder for the public to sort of point the finger at one side or another.

That’s much easier said than done. The court decides questions with major political consequences all the time. But to decide the questions in the context of an upcoming election feels different.

The Conversation: The justices granted only Trump’s appeal to consider the case, not the Colorado Republican Party’s. Is this significant, and if so, how?

Muller: The Colorado Republican Party and the Trump campaign were on two different tracks in their appeals. When you grant both cases, you invite two sets of attorneys and parties to participate and add complexity. I think the decision to grant only Trump’s case is a decision to make this as streamlined a process as possible.

The Conversation: Will whatever decision the court makes put to rest the ballot access questions in all the other states?

Muller: There are a couple of very narrow grounds the court might rule on. For example, they might say, we’re not ready to hear this case because it’s only a primary, or Colorado so abused its own state procedures as to run afoul of federal constitutional rules. Those would be kind of rulings only applicable to the Colorado case or only applicable in the primaries.

There’s a chance the court does this, but my sense — not to speculate too much — is that’s going to be deeply unsatisfying for the court, knowing that if they delay in this case, another case is likely coming later in the summer where these questions will have to be addressed in August or September. That’s much closer to the general election. Those are months when the court is in recess, and they would have to come back from their summer vacation early. So my sense is that the court will try to resolve these on a comprehensive basis. They’ve scheduled oral argument on Feb. 8, 2024 so they want to move on as quickly as possible to put this to rest.

The Conversation: You submitted an amicus brief in the Colorado case for neither side. What was it you wanted to tell the court?

Muller: I raised two general points and then one specific to Colorado. The two general points are that I think states have the power to judge the qualifications of presidential candidates and keep them off the ballot. And states have done that over the years to say if you were born in Nicaragua, or you’re 27 years old, we’re going to keep you off the ballot.

But I also say states have no obligation to do that. You can look throughout history, going back to the 1890s, where ineligible candidates’ names have been printed and put on the ballot. And this isn’t a question of whether or not the state wants to do it — they have the flexibility to do it. So I wanted to set those two framing questions up so the court doesn’t veer too much in one direction or the other to say “states have no power” or “of course states have power regardless of what the legislature has asked them to do.”

The point specific to Colorado is I doubted there was jurisdiction in Colorado for the state Supreme Court to hear this case, but the court disagreed with me.

The Conversation: What could happen during the period between now and the court’s decision that could be consequential?

Muller: More states are going to consider these challenges as the ballot deadlines approach. And we know that there’s Super Tuesday the first Tuesday of March when a significant number of states hold presidential primaries. So I think there’s a lot of uncertainty in the next six weeks about which states might exclude him.

On top of that is voter uncertainty. Voters are making their decisions and weighing the trade-offs of who to vote for. Right now, this is a cloud hanging over the Trump campaign. It’s not just that he’s been declared ineligible in Colorado and Maine. It’s the question in other states for other voters: Am I wasting my vote, is this actually an ineligible candidate? Should I be voting for somebody else?

That’s not an enviable position for voters to be in — that they might cast their ballots only to find out later that they’re not going to be counted.

_{^{This article was first published by The Conversation.}}

_{Naomi Schalit is the Conversation’s senior politics and democracy editor.}