DENVER, COLORADO – With the Colorado GOP’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep former president and current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump on the state’s primary ballot, President Trump is near certain to stay on the ballot.
The Colorado Secretary of State’s office said that “Donald Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot when certification occurs on January 5, 2024, unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling.”
Secretary Jena Griswold added in a comment that she is in support of the Colorado Supreme Court ruling to disqualify President Trump.
“Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and was disqualified under the Constitution from the Colorado Ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court got it right,” Ms. Grisworld stated. “This decision is now being appealed. I urge the U.S. Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election.”
On Dec. 19, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled President Trump ineligible as a candidate under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which stipulates that people who have taken an oath of office and then participated in an “insurrection” or “rebellions” cannot return to office without a two-thirds vote from Congress to remove the disability.
Activists have argued that Jan. 6, 2021, constituted an insurrection, and legal scholars and experts in recent months have debated over the application of the Civil War-era statute as it pertains to President Trump’s eligibility for office.
Lawsuits challenging his eligibility have been filed in about half the states across the nation, but both federal and state judges have largely dismissed the cases on procedural and jurisdictional grounds. Reasons have included the interpretation that primaries and political party functions and not governed by the state secretary’s office, to rejecting the idea that the framers of the 14th Amendment meant for each state to determine their own definition of “insurrection.”
The Colorado Supreme Court ruling included several specific conditions. It had stayed its own order to remove President Trump from the ballot until Jan. 4, just one day before the deadline to certify the primary ballots. That stay would be lifted if no party sought an appeal in the U.S. Supreme Court. Once an appeal is filed, the secretary is ordered to follow any U.S. Supreme Court decision instead.
If the U.S. Supreme Court decides to reject the case by Jan. 4, Colorado will remove President Trump from the primary ballot. Legal scholars and state secretaries have for months been expecting the U.S. Supreme Court to ultimately provide an answer for this novel legal theory challenging President Trump’s eligibility. Even before considering whether Jan. 6 constituted an “insurrection,” state judges and amici experts had expressed skepticism that Section 3 is meant for individual states or courts to decide.
The Colorado GOP presented three questions to the U.S. Supreme Court. They are: whether Section 3 applies to presidents, whether Section 3 is self-executing and allows individual states to decide to remove candidates without input from Congress, and whether denying a political party the right to primary their candidates of choice violates the First Amendment.
Spokespersons for President Trump had also announced their intention to file a petition for immediate review before the U.S. Supreme Court but had not indicated what sort of legal question they would present. The high court may yet decide to reject the case; it could do so after Jan. 4, and President Trump would still appear on the Colorado primary ballot. The Supreme Court already declined to hear one such 14th Amendment appeal in October, though the situation has changed with Colorado explicitly finding President Trump ineligible.
Though President Trump would stay on the primary ballot without action from the U.S. Supreme Court, another wave of disqualification challenges may emerge before the general elections. Having already determined President Trump ineligible, Colorado may be poised to remove President Trump from the general election ballot.
The Minnesota Supreme Court had also earlier dismissed an eligibility challenge without prejudice, explaining that primaries are a party matter, but the challenge could be brought regarding the general election. Colorado remains the only state to have heard arguments regarding “insurrection” in court, holding a week-long trial in which plaintiffs presented a case largely based on the controversial January 6 Select Committee report.
Attorneys for President Trump argued the report should not have been allowed as evidence, pointing to the bias of committee members, but judges faulted the attorneys for not attempting to refute individual facts and arguments pulled from the report.
In Maine, Secretary of State Shanna Bellows held a public hearing after three challenges to President Trump’s eligibility were submitted to her office, and the issue of insurrection was argued as well. She is set to issue a decision herself, but attorneys for President Trump have requested she recuse herself from the decision-making process after discovering she has made several public statements describing Jan. 6 as an “insurrection” and in favor of impeaching President Trump.
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