By Katelyn Caralle, U.S. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com
21:54 03 Jan 2024, updated 23:14 03 Jan 2024
Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to keep him on the ballot in Colorado, officially challenging the Colorado Supreme Court ruling that disqualifies him from appearing on the presidential ballot in the state.
The state’s Supreme Court ruled last month that under clause three of the 14th Amendment, Trump cannot appear on the ballot because he ‘engaged in insurrection.’
It was the first time in history that the 14th Amendment provision was used to block a presidential contender’s campaign.
Trump’s appeal for the Supreme Court to take up the case on Wednesday comes after the Colorado Republican Party did the same thing last week – sparking the state to put a stay on the move and keep the ex-president on the ballot for the time being.
The legal filing on Wednesday states that Colorado’s ruling ‘is not and cannot be correct.’
Trump’s attorneys ask the Supreme Court to take up the case, reverse the Colorado ruling and ‘return the right to vote for their candidate of choice to the voters.’
In addition, the filing insists that Trump’s role in the events on January 6 ‘was not insurrection’ and President Trump ‘in no way engaged in insurrection.’
Spokesperson Steven Cheung said Trump’s attorneys are urging the Supreme Court to provide a ‘clear, summary rejection of the Colorado Supreme Court’s wrongful ruling.’
‘This is an unAmerican, unconstitutional act of election interference which cannot stand,’ Cheung added.
He also blasted ‘Crooked Joe Biden’s comrades’ for attempting to remove Trump from the ballot, calling it another attempt by Democrats ‘obsessively violating’ the Constitution and voters’ rights.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold urged the U.S. Supreme Court to take up Trump’s case on Tuesday, saying there are a ‘number of important deadlines’ in the state’s election calendar and the matter must be resolved quickly.
Maine’s Secretary of State followed suit and also moved to boot Trump from the ballot in the state last week, which Trump also challenged Tuesday in an appeal to the state’s Superior Court.
Michigan, a key swing state, ruled that Trump can remain on the ballot.
The Colorado Republican Party filed last week asking the U.S. Supreme Court to look at the lower court’s ruling that disqualified Trump from running on the presidential ballot in the state due to his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
Trump was put back on the presidential ballot in Colorado after the GOP appeal put a stay on the ruling that removed him under the Constitution’s ‘insurrection’ clause.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced that Trump will for the time being remain on the ballot, which goes to print on January 5 – unless the Supreme Court affirms the lower court’s ruling or otherwise declines to take on the appeal.
Although Colorado’s 10 Electoral College votes are unlikely to go to the Republican candidate anyway in the general election – and the state isn’t highly important in the GOP primary – the ruling could set precedent for a slew of other states looking to remove Trump from the ballot.
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled after Colorado to leave the ex-president on the ballot for the state’s primary – and the midwest swing state is much more important to clinching the White House in 2024.
Louisiana became one of the latest states to see a lawsuit filed attempting to keep Trump off the ballot related to the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
‘Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and was disqualified under the Constitution from the Colorado Ballot,’ Griswold said in a press release.
‘The Colorado Supreme Court got it right. This decision is now being appealed,’ she continued. ‘I urge the U.S. Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election.’
The Colorado Supreme Court put a stay – or pause – on its ruling until January 4 to allow time for the appeal process.
Former Trump attorney Jay Sekulow’s conservative American Center for Law & Justice filed a petition last Wednesday that would overturn Colorado’s controversial decision.
‘We’ve been saying from the day we took this case that this was one that would end up at the U.S. Supreme Court,’ Seklow wrote in a statement on the filing along with his son Jordan.
‘Today, we just filed a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court’s dangerously flawed twisting of the 14th Amendment to ban President Trump from the ballot,’ wrote the father-son duo, who are representing Colorado’s GOP.
‘This is the most important case we have ever taken on,’ they added. ‘Because if we lose our right to vote, we lose our constitutional republic.’
‘We expect this case to move very quickly, and we will keep you updated on its progress.’
The first impact of the appeal is to extend the stay of the 4-3 ruling from Colorado’s highest court. This puts the decision on pause until January 4 – the day before the state’s primary ballots are due at the printer – or until an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is finished, whichever comes first.
Trump says he also still plans to appeal the ruling to the nation’s highest court.
The Supreme Court has never ruled on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was added after the Civil War to prevent former Confederates from returning to government.
The clause states that anyone who swore an oath to ‘support’ the constitution and then ‘engaged in insurrection’ against it cannot hold government office – but the section specifically mentions several offices without directly naming the presidency.
The Colorado high court ruled that applies to Trump after he encouraged his supporters to engage in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Rioters intended to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election when they descended on Washington, D.C.
‘The Colorado Supreme Court has removed the leading Republican candidate from the primary and general ballots, fundamentally changing the course of American democracy,’ the Colorado Republican Party’s attorneys wrote.
The filing was posted on the website of a group run by Jay Sekulow, a former attorney for Trump representing the Colorado Republican Party who announced he was filing the appeal Wednesday.
Colorado Republican Party chairman Dave Williams confirmed the appeal was filed Wednesday.
The attorneys added: ‘Unless the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision is overturned, any voter will have the power to sue to disqualify any political candidate, in Colorado or in any other jurisdiction that follows its lead.’
‘This will not only distort the 2024 presidential election but will also mire courts henceforth in political controversies over nebulous accusations of insurrection.’
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to take the case, either after the Colorado GOP’s appeal or Trump’s own appeal.
If Trump ends up off the ballot in Colorado, it would have minimal effect on his campaign because he doesn’t need the state, which he lost by 13 percentage points in 2020, to win the Electoral College in the presidential election. But it could open the door to courts or election officials striking him from the ballot in other must-win states.
Sean Grimsley, an attorney for the plaintiffs seeking to disqualify Trump in Colorado, said on a legal podcast last week that he hopes the nation’s highest court hurries once it accepts the case, as he expects it will.
‘We obviously are going to ask for an extremely accelerated timeline because of all the reasons I’ve stated, we have a primary coming up on Super Tuesday and we need to know the answer,’ Grimsley said.
More than a dozen states, including Colorado, are scheduled to hold primaries March 5 on what is known as Super Tuesday – the largest single-day primary election contest.
The Colorado case was considered the one with the greatest chance of success because it was filed by a Washington D.C.-based liberal group with ample legal resources – and all seven of the Colorado high court justices were appointed by Democrats.
Still, three of those Democrat-appointed justices were against the decision.
The unprecedented constitutional questions in the case haven’t split on neatly partisan lines with several prominent conservative legal theorists among the most vocal advocates of disqualifying Trump under Section 3.
Additionally, the half-dozen plaintiffs in the Colorado case are all Republican or unaffiliated voters.
Trump has been scathing all over his Truth Social account and at his rallies about the cases, calling them ‘election interference.’
He continued that on Wednesday as he cheered a ruling earlier that day by the Michigan Supreme Court leaving him on the ballot, at least for the primary, in that state.
‘The Colorado people have embarrassed our nation with what they did,’ Trump said on Sean Hannity’s radio show.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
