The Colorado Supreme Court will hear appeals weighing whether Donald Trump should be barred from the state’s 2024 ballot due to the 14th Amendment.
Last week, a judge ruled that former President Donald Trump must be allowed on next year’s Republican primary ballot.
Trump and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which filed the lawsuit on behalf of six Colorado voters, have both appealed the decision.
The 14th Amendment disqualification trial focused on Trump’s actions before and during the U.S. Capitol riot and whether they violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Section 3 states:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability
Trump in his appeal to the Colorado Supreme Court said he agreed with the latter part of the ruling keeping him on the state’s ballot but is appealing on other issues.
“But the district court nonetheless made legal and factual findings wholly unsupported in the law, and these errors demand review – especially if the Petitioners in this matter also seek review of the sole dispositive issue upon which President Trump prevailed,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace said in her ruling that that language means the 14th Amendment can’t be used to prevent Trump from appearing on the ballot, regardless of whether the then-president’s actions on Jan. 6 cleared the threshold.
Wallace ruled the presidency was not an “office … under the United States” because the 14th Amendment explicitly lists all federal elected positions, except for the presidency and vice presidency. Wallace further ruled Trump was not an “officer of the United States” in the first place, referencing other constitutional provisions that distinguish the presidency from federal officers.
“Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, passed after the Civil War, excludes from federal or state office those who engaged in insurrection against the Constitution after previously taking an oath to support it,” CREW argued in its appeal brief.
