Trump attorneys appeal Colorado ballot ruling to Supreme Court: ‘Cannot be correct’
Attorneys for former President Donald Trump appealed to the US Supreme Court Wednesday to strike down a ruling from Colorado’s high court that would kick him off the state’s 2024 Republican primary ballot.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled 4-3 on Dec. 19 that the former president was ineligible to be certified on Jan. 5 for the primary contest to be held two months later because he had participated in an “insurrection.”
Wednesday’s 34-page motion, led by attorneys Scott Gessler and Harmeet Dhillon, argued that “[i]n our system of ‘government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,’ Colorado’s ruling is not and cannot be correct.”
“The question of eligibility to serve as President of the United States is properly reserved for Congress, not the state courts, to consider and decide,” the filing added. “By considering the question of President Trump’s eligibility and barring him from the ballot, the Colorado Supreme Court arrogated Congress’ authority.”
The Colorado decision had cited Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot as proof that he violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars those who have violated their oath of office and “engaged in insurrection” from governing again.
The state’s high court stayed their ruling — which marked the first time in American history a candidate has been removed from a primary based on the so-called Insurrection Clause — pending the long-expected appeal to the US Supreme Court.
Trump’s attorneys argued for the decision to overturned on three grounds: First, that the presidency was not among the offices covered by Section 3; second, that the Colorado Supreme Court had wrongly described the 45th president as having “engaged” in that day’s violence; and third, that the court violated the Constitution by intervening in the matter at all.
“Forcing President Trump to prove that he is not disqualified before appearing on the ballot effectively adds a new, extra-constitutional requirement to running for office,” the Trump team wrote. “But US Term Limits renders the states powerless to add to or alter the Constitution’s qualifications or eligibility criteria for federal officials, and states are equally powerless to exclude federal candidates from the ballot based on state-created qualifications or eligibility criteria not mandated by the Constitution.”
“Crooked Joe Biden’s comrades, including the Colorado Supreme Court and CREW, a radical, left-wing activist group, are doing all they can to disenfranchise all American voters by attempting to remove President Trump, the leading candidate in the 2024 Presidential Election, from the primary ballot,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“Democrats are obsessively violating the American voters’ Constitutional right to vote for the candidate of their choice. This is an unAmerican [sic], unconstitutional act of election interference which cannot stand. We urge a clear, summary rejection of the Colorado Supreme Court’s wrongful ruling and the execution of a free and fair election this November.”
Last week, the Colorado Republican Party also appealed the ruling to the nation’s high court, saying in a 45-page filing that the national party “has been irreparably harmed by the decision” to disqualify Trump, 77.
“The state has interfered in the primary election by unreasonably restricting the Party’s ability to select its candidates,” reads the petition filed on behalf of the state party by the nonpr👍ofit A💧merican Center for law and Justice.
“As a natural and inevitable result, the state has interfered with the Party’🌜s ability to place on the general election ballot the cand🤡idate of its choice. And it has done so based on a subjective claim of insurrection the state lacks any constitutional authority to make.”
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold confirmed Dec. 28 that Trump would remain on the 2024 primary ballot until Jan. 4, when the state Supreme Court’s stay on their ruling ends.
The 𓆉Colorado high court referenced in its ruling a prior decision from Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, who oversees appeals from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Colorado, Kansas, New M🐻exico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.
Asked for his opinion the day after the Colorado decision, President Biden said it was “self-evident” that Trump was an “insurrectionist” but that he was “not going to comment on a court case.”
“Is Trump an insurrectionist?” one reporter asked Biden as he landed in Milwaukee for an♉ event.
“Well, I think certain things are self-evident,” he responded. “You saw it 🐷all. Now whether the 14th Amendment applies, I’ll let the court make that decision.
Michigan’s Supreme Court ruled against a similar case seeking to disqualify Trump Dec. 27.
The brief, unsigned order upheld lower courts’ rulings and said the justices were “not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court.”
Only one Michigan Supreme Court justice, Elizabeth Welch, dissented, arguing her colleagues should have ruled on the merits o♔f the petition rather than its jurisdiction.
Welch also said the plaintiffs should have been allowed “to renew their legal efforts as to the Michigan general election later in 2024 should🎶 Trump become the Republican nominee for President of the United States or seek such office as an༒ independent candidate.”
Michigan will hold its GOP primary on Feb. 27, while Colorado will hold its on March 5, the day 🌜after Trump is expected to appear in Washington, DC, federal court over his four-count indictment related to 💜the events of Jan. 6.
In that case, special counsel Jack Smith charged the former president with obstructing an official proceeding but not under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment prohibition against “insurrection.”
Smith had petitioned the Supreme Court to quickly consider Trump’s defense that he maintained presidential immunity for actions he took to challenge election results while in office after the former president’s attorneys appealed a lower court ruling on the matter.
But the justices denied the petition for 🌌an expedited decision Dec. 22, all but guaranteeing that the case will 🍎not head to trial on March 4, the day before Super Tuesday, when 16 state primary contests are held.
Trump’s attorneys had already appealed an earlier district court ruling that denied a motion to dismiss the case based on presidential immunity powers, an argument that must now make its way through the appellate courts beginning with a hearing in Washington Jan. 9.
The former president is also appealing a Dec. 28 decision by Maine’s secretary of state forcing him off the ballot there.
