The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled 4–3 to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot, citing the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”
The decision is currently in effect until January 4th when an appeal will be considered by the US Supreme Court.
This ruling could have far-reaching implications for the presidential race of 2024 and has been met with opposition from officials in Colorado’s election office who must determine Republican primary contenders by January 5.
The 14th Amendment was ratified after the Civil War and states that individuals who have “engaged in insurrection” are not eligible for public office. Since its ratification in 1919, this provision has only been applied twice.
All seven justices on Colorado’s highest court were appointed by Democratic governors and six of them won statewide retention elections while one was recently appointed in 2021 and yet to be put to a vote.
Donald Trump has rejected the notion that litigation challenging the 14th Amendment is an abuse of the judicial process, and he has entered a not-guilty plea in response to federal and state charges related to his efforts to reverse the 2020 election results.
As he campaigns for the Republican nomination in 2024, Trump has heavily criticized these lawsuits as an attempt to prevent him from running again.
On November 17th, Judge Sarah B. Wallace ruled against six voters who argued that Trump’s role in inciting the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was unconstitutional according to Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars anyone from holding office after taking an oath to support it if they were involved in insurrection afterwards.
The Colorado Supreme Court will now hear oral arguments this week concerning whether or not Trump is constitutionally eligible to appear on Colorado’s 2024 ballot.
The plaintiffs are supported by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit organization; they have argued that Judge Wallace’s conclusion that presidents are excluded from Section 3 is “nonsensical”, while attorneys for Trump have asked the Supreme Court examine several facets of this case including this same conclusion about his alleged involvement in insurrection.
Furthermore, both parties have appealed this ruling to Colorado’s highest court with briefs being filed by numerous nonaffiliated parties both for and against its resolution there.
Additionally, many other states have submitted similar challenges concerning Trump’s candidacy in 2024; everyone awaits a decision from the federal government at its highest level of authority regarding how this matter will be resolved.
“The 14th Amendment entrusts Insurrection Clause questions to Congress, not state officials or state courts,” the Nov. 29 brief states. “Allowing each state and its courts to determine eligibility using malleable standards would create an unworkable patchwork of eligibility requirements for the president.”
On X, former Twitter, Representative Rokita declared challenges to President Trump’s eligibility an “attack on our republic.” In response, fourteen state Republican parties filed a brief in support of his eligibility to vote, led by Kansas’ GOP.
The intervenor for Trump during the trial, the Colorado Republican Party, asserted that Secretary of State Jena Griswold had no authority to unilaterally bar Trump from the ballot due to her ministerial role in certifying the chosen candidates.
Furthermore, Republican secretaries from Missouri, Ohio and Wyoming argued that President Trump was “wrongly accused” of insurgency.
“This is a classic case of judicial overreach, and the (lower court judge’s) ruling in this case has no basis in law,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose said in a statement. “The district court’s order relies on flimsy and circumstantial evidence to reach a flawed conclusion with far-reaching implications both for the president’s legal defense and for the broader democratic process of free and fair elections.”
Mary Estill Buchanan, a former Republican secretary of state of Colorado, appeared in an amicus brief in support of the plaintiffs’ case.
She told the court, “This country and its institutions are at a crossroads.”
“(Trump) allowed a lust for power to supersede his own Oath of Office and over two centuries of American political precedent. Mr. Trump has sought at every turn to inject chaos into our country’s electoral system in the upcoming 2024 presidential election,” the brief said. “He should be given no opportunity to do so in the state of Colorado.”
Now, the Trump campaign has weighed in on the Supreme Court’s outrageous ruling.
Spokesman Steven Cheung unleashed a fiery response blasting the Court, Biden, and the radical left Soros group who brought the suit.
He also vowed the Trump campaign would take the case directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat-appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice.
We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits.
This is an outrageous assault on American democracy and cannot stand.
3 Comments
So when he doesnt appear on the ballot millions of MAGA voters can sue the state of Commiearado for disenfranchising millions of voters.
When did Colorado become ruled by bigoted liberal communists? I feel sorry for my conservative friends who live there and will have no voice in their election!
Write in President Trump and stop these radical witch hunters. Go after Obama & Hunter Biden