On Wednesday, The Colorado Republican Party asked the US Supreme Court to reverse the unusual state Supreme Court ruling that dismissed Donald Trump from Colorado’s 2024 ballot.
The Colorado Republican Party was also a partaker in the case and is battling to preserve its right to retain Trump on its primary ballot. Trump still needs to file his plea, which is anticipated soon.
The plea came hours after the Michigan Supreme Court denied a similar 14th Amendment lawsuit. It keeps Trump on the ballot there. The dueling results further raise the stakes for the Colorado plea to the US Supreme Court. It is uniquely placed to provide nationwide recommendations on unexplored constitutional matters.
The appeal represents the state court’s pause on the ruling. It was set to expire on January 4. It will be indefinitely prolonged until the US Supreme Court declares whether it will take up the appeal and, if it does, until it gives a final decision.
It also pulls the nine federal justices into yet another dispute involving the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. The high court is involved in other matters related to Trump’s election subversion criminal case.
The Colorado judge who headed over the trial vested the state GOP’s request to interfere shortly after the case was filed. In their filing on Wednesday, the party requested the US Supreme Court to take up the case and revive Trump’s name on the Colorado primary ballot.
“By excluding President Trump from the ballot, the Colorado Supreme Court engaged in an unprecedented disregard for the First Amendment right of political parties to select the candidates of their choice and a usurpation of the rights of the people to choose their elected officials,” lawyers representing the party noted, according to the petition they posted online.
Moreover, Republican and independent voters filed the Colorado lawsuit, coordinating with a liberal government watchdog body, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
In the First Amendment debate, the Colorado GOP expressed that the state Supreme Court incorrectly widened the Constitution’s “insurrectionist ban” to apply to presidents, even though the office isn’t explicitly cited in the provision. They also argued only Congress, not courts or state election officeholders, can implement the ban.
“Rejecting a long history of precedent, a state Supreme Court has now concluded that individual litigants, state courts, and secretaries of state in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia have authority to enforce Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the state party reported.
Earlier, the Colorado Supreme Court rejected all of these arguments. The trial judge consented with the Colorado GOP’s assertion that the prohibition doesn’t apply to presidents. Still, the Colorado Supreme Court opposed and overturned that portion of her ruling – stopping Trump from the ballot.
The party also raises the probability that other states might embrace Colorado’s grounds to ban Trump from the ballot. Parallel challenges are pending in Maine and Oregon. Some Democratic officials have suggested election officials consider pulling Trump without a court ruling.
“With the number of challenges to President Trump’s candidacy now pending in other states, ranging from lawsuits to administrative proceedings, there is a real risk the Colorado Supreme Court majority’s flawed and unprecedented analysis will be borrowed, and the resulting grave legal error repeated,” the state party noted.
Critical deadlines are coming up that could affect how quickly or slowly the justices proceed. Colorado election officials are mandated by law to permit by January 5 the list of candidates who will occur on the GOP primary ballot. And the primary itself is fixed for March 5, which is Super Tuesday.
The stunning 4-3 decision issued by the Colorado Supreme Court on December 19 expressed Trump is constitutionally ineligible to run in 2024 because the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on insurrectionists holding public office outlines his conduct on January 6, 2021.
“President Trump incited and encouraged the use of violence and lawless action to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power,” the Colorado justices noted in their unsigned, 134-page majority opinion.
