On Tuesday, December 19, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that the insurrection clause of the Constitution disqualifies former US President Donald Trump from running for president. The court also directed the secretary of state to remove Trump’s name from the state’s Republican presidential primary ballot.
The divided Colorado Supreme Court rendered a historic decision, ruling that Trump is ineligible to hold public office under the Civil War-era statute. This is the first time a court has determined that Trump’s actions surrounding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, disqualify him from holding office again.
A court has never previously decided that a presidential candidate is ineligible under the 14th Amendment’s Section 3.
The state supreme court, whose justices were all appointed by Democratic governors, postponed its decision until January 4, one day before Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold had to certify the candidates for the state’s March 5 primary. The ruling is only applicable within the state of Colorado.
“We conclude that because President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list President Trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot,” the court’s majority wrote in an unsigned opinion. “Therefore, the Secretary may not list President Trump’s name on the 2024 presidential primary ballot, nor may she count any write-in votes cast for him.”
Ahead of the 2024 election, lawsuits contesting Trump’s nomination have been filed in over 25 states; nevertheless, the Colorado action, which was brought on behalf of six voters, poses the most immediate threat to his campaign. According to national polls, Trump leads the field of contenders seeking the Republican presidential nomination.
According to a spokeswoman for his campaign, Trump will appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. This would set up a high-stakes contest regarding his eligibility to run for office right before voters in early states start casting ballots in the Republican primary. The Colorado Supreme Court decided to postpone its ruling, stating that if an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is filed before January 4th, the stay will be in effect and the secretary will have to include Trump on the 2024 primary ballot until the court makes a ruling.
“The Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight and we will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision,” Steve Cheung, spokesman for the Trump campaign, said in a statement. “We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these unAmerican lawsuits.”
The majority of the seven-member Colorado Supreme Court, which split 4–3, overturned the trial court’s interpretation of Section 3’s breadth and concluded that it covers both the office of the president and a person who has taken an oath of office.
Whether or not Trump is prohibited from holding the presidency under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was at issue in the Colorado case. The goal of the clause is to bar anybody who participated in insurrection and took an oath to defend the Constitution from holding state or federal office.
The majority’s four justices stated that “we travel in uncharted territory, and that this case presents several issues of first impression” in their decision.
“We do not reach these conclusions lightly. We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us,” the majority wrote.
“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.”
The judges dismissed arguments from Trump’s attorneys that the Capitol break by his followers on January 6 was not an uprising. Instead, they found that the case file “amply established that the events of January 6 constituted a concerted and public use of force or threat of force by a group of people to hinder or prevent the U.S. government from taking the actions necessary to accomplish the peaceful transfer of power in this country.”
The Colorado Supreme Court declared that there is “substantial evidence” that Trump was “laying the groundwork for a claim that the election was rigged” prior to the November presidential battle, so ruling that the former president had participated in rebellion.
Trump, the majority said, “continued to fan the flames of his supporters’ ire, which he had ignited” by making false claims about the integrity of the election on social media and in a speech outside the White House on Jan. 6
“President Trump’s direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary,” the justices wrote.
“Moreover, the evidence amply showed that President Trump undertook all these actions to aid and further a common unlawful purpose that he himself conceived and set in motion: prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election and stop the peaceful transfer of power.”
The high court found that Trump “did not merely incite the insurrection,” but “continued to support it” by continuing to urge then-Vice President Mike Pence to unilaterally toss out state Electoral College votes.
“These actions constituted overt, voluntary, and direct participation in the insurrection,” the majority wrote.
Chief Justice Brian Boatright, Justices Carlos Samour and Maria Berkenkotter, and Justices Richard Gabriel, Melissa Hart, Monica Márquez, and William Hood dissented.
Samour cautioned in his dissent that Trump will probably be barred from the presidential primary ballot in fewer than half of the 50 states due to election regulations that differ from Colorado’s, “risking chaos in our country.”
“This can’t possibly be the outcome the framers intended,” he wrote.