Former U.S. President Donald Trump will not appear on the primary ballot in the state of Colorado, the state’s top court ruled Tuesday in a decision closely watched amid similar efforts in other states to disqualify him from a re-election bid.
At issue is the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment and a section that bars officials who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office.
The court said its ruling would be put on hold until Jan. 4, or until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the case. Colorado state officials have said Jan. 5 is the deadline for printing ballots for the state’s presidential primary, one of the state-by-state contests that the Republican Party will use to pick its candidate to oppose Biden in the 2024 election.
The Colorado Supreme Court decided in an unprecedented 4-3 ruling that Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, during which his supporters disrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win over Trump, disqualifies Trump from holding the presidency.
"We do not reach these conclusions lightly," the majority justices wrote. "We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach."
Justice Carlos Samour, who dissented, said the government cannot bar someone from holding office without due process of law. Trump pleaded not guilty to federal charges of orchestrating a plot to overturn his election loss in a case that has not yet gone to trial.
“Even if we are convinced that a candidate committed horrible acts in the past — dare I say, engaged in insurrection — there must be procedural due process before we can declare that individual disqualified from holding public office,” Samour wrote.
Trump’s campaign called the decision “deeply undemocratic” and said in a statement it expects the U.S. Supreme Court “will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these unAmerican lawsuits.”
President Joe Biden reacted to the ruling on Wednesday, saying "I'll let the court make that decision. But he certainly supported an insurrection. No question about it, none, zero.”
The U.S. Supreme Court decides which cases it accepts, but Matthew Kerbel, professor of political science at Villanova University, told VOA he thinks the court will certainly choose to rule on this decision.
“This is something that the Supreme Court needs to decide. There has to be a uniform ruling that would apply across the country,” Kerbel said. “Now, in terms of the greatest potential ramifications for the election, clearly that would be if the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the Colorado ruling. If they do that, then Donald Trump would be ineligible to be on the ballot; he couldn't become president again. And that would obviously throw the entire 2024 campaign into turmoil.”
Similar attempts to disqualify Trump from the ballot on 14th Amendment grounds have been dismissed in five states.
Minnesota’s Supreme Court said it could not block a candidate from appearing on a party’s primary ballot, as did the secretary of state in New Hampshire.
A Michigan appeals court said the issue of a candidate being disqualified was a question related to the general election and thus it would not be appropriate to decide on eligibility for a primary election. Plaintiffs in Michigan have appealed that ruling to the state’s supreme court.
In Florida and Rhode Island, the cases were dismissed because judges ruled the plaintiffs lacked standing to file the lawsuit.
According to the blog Lawfare, there are pending challenges to Trump appearing on ballots in 13 other states.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
