Lawyers representing Colorado’s Republican Party have appealed to the Supreme Court, challenging a ruling from the state’s highest court that results in keeping former President Donald Trump off Colorado’s primary ballot in 2024 for his perceived role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. This decision, according to Attorney Jay Sekulow, situates the nation in a constitutional crisis of significant magnitude. During the appeal, Sekulow cautioned the state supreme court’s decision could hold “catastrophic effects” and distort the upcoming presidential election, if allowed to stand. The decision might even bloat courts with political controversies over vague accusations of insurrection, he alleged.
The contentious verdict came after a group of registered Republicans and unaffiliated voters, eligible to vote in Colorado’s presidential primary, initiated a lawsuit, arguing that Trump should be excluded from the state’s primary ballot. The argument presented was that Trump, while in office, had vowed to support the Constitution but had allegedly participated in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. The state’s Supreme Court ruled in their favor, suggesting that Trump is disqualified from serving as president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a notion that Sekulow fervently disputes. However, the court has offered a window for the Supreme Court to weigh in, keeping its ruling on hold until Jan. 4, 2024, the final deadline for ballot certification.
Sekulow, contrary to Colorado’s ruling, argued that Section 3 doesn’t apply to the president, asserting the president isn’t an “officer of the United States” and that enforcement of Section 3 falls solely within the domain of Congress. Furthermore, he maintained that the decision infringes upon the Colorado Republican Party’s First Amendment rights, violating its right to choose candidates for the primary and general election ballots.
The fallout from the Jan. 6 attacks has birthed several attempts to leverage Section 3 to prevent Republicans affiliated with the incident from appearing on ballots. However, this case represents the first instance where Section 3 has successfully been used, with Trump being barred from appearing on the ballot.
This controversy unfolds as other states like Minnesota and Michigan have their own disputes concerning Trump’s eligibility. In Minnesota, Trump survived an attempt to remove him from their state’s ballot, whereas the Michigan Supreme Court refrained from reviewing a lower-court ruling that permitted Trump to appear on Michigan’s primary ballot.
In a bid to expedite the matter, Sekulow has filed a motion alongside his petition for review, requesting that the court settles the case by March 5, 2024 (Super Tuesday). The plaintiffs from the Colorado lawsuit have also asked the justices to act swiftly and decide on the case by Feb. 11, so Colorado voters and those in other states can know Trump’s status before casting their ballots.
To learn more about this development, visit the original publication of this report on SCOTUSblog.