The six Colorado voters who sued to keep former President Donald Trump off the Colorado Republican primary ballot are now making their case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“By spearheading the January 6 insurrection, Trump disqualified himself from holding federal office again,” the court filing reads. “The Colorado Supreme Court correctly held that Section 3 applies to insurrectionist former Presidents, that disqualified insurrectionists may not seek the office of the Presidency.”
The respondents and the Colorado GOP alike are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to take on the case on an expedited basis.
“Although the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision was correct and implicates no split of authority, this Court should nevertheless grant certiorari,” the voters argued.
“This case is of utmost national importance,” they added. “And given the upcoming presidential primary schedule, there is no time to wait for the issues to percolate further.”
Several similar lawsuits are being litigated around the country, and the respondents argue that voters nationwide should have a definitive answer as to whether President Trump is constitutionally eligible to run for president.
President Trump has remained the party’s frontrunner the past year with his lead only increasing, and is poised to become the party’s nominee. The Colorado Republican Party had indicated that it would change to a caucus system if President Trump’s name did not appear on the primary ballot.
But with the Colorado Republican Party’s appeal in the high court, the Colorado Supreme Court ruling is stayed.
Supreme Court Case
The Colorado GOP had presented the Supreme Court with three questions regarding whether Section 3 applies to presidents, whether Section 3 is self-executing and allows individual states to decide to remove candidates without input from Congress, and whether denying a political party the right to put any candidates it chooses on the primary ballot violates the First Amendment.The six Colorado voters argued to reframe the questions, asking the Supreme Court to answer the first question as to whether presidents are covered by Section 3 and omit the third question regarding whether denying a political party the opportunity to primary a candidate is a First Amendment violation.
“This Court’s settled precedent holds that the Constitution provides no right to confuse voters and clutter the ballot with candidates who are not eligible to hold the office they seek,” the brief reads.
They also argued to reframe the second question to “whether states have authority to enforce Section 3 pursuant to state law absent federal legislation.”
The question of whether Section 3 is self-executing has been at the center of these challenges across multiple jurisdictions.
Section 3 was a little known statute until recent months, when several of these challenges to keep President Trump out of state primaries came to a head.
The 14th Amendment was ratified after the Civil War to extend citizenship and equal rights to former slaves—all persons born or naturalized in the United States—and Section 3 was added to prevent officials who abandoned office to join the Confederacy from returning to their former posts. It states that those who have taken oaths of office and later engaged in “insurrection” or “rebellions” or provided aid to such enemies could not hold office without a two-thirds vote from Congress to remove the “disability.”
Some defense attorneys for President Trump have argued that absent legislation from Congress, states may not adjudicate qualification and issues of insurrection. The petitioners argue that Section 3 is self-executing and that states can and must adjudicate the matter when state law requires officials to allow only eligible candidates on their ballots.
Much of the respondents’ new brief covers matters of “insurrection” as related to the events of Jan. 6, 2021. They claim, as they did in the original petition, that President Trump “incited” his supporters to violent behavior, and that rallygoers came armed and prepared for violence and disruption.
They argue that the Colorado case included “extensive” pretrial motion practice and disclosures. Attorneys for President Trump had argued the opposite, arguing a week-long trial was not enough to determine that President Trump had engaged in insurrection. The trial included testimony from 15 witnesses, and pretrial procedures had lasted another six weeks, during which three motions to dismiss were rejected.
A Colorado district court originally ordered Secretary of State Jena Griswold to put President Trump on the primary ballot, finding that he engaged in insurrection but that Section 3 did not apply to presidents. Both sides appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court, which found that Section 3 did apply to presidents and overturned the lower court’s ruling in part with an order to remove President Trump from the ballot if no appeal was filed to the Supreme Court by Jan. 4.
The respondents now ask the Supreme Court to affirm that Section 3 is self-executing, thus allowing states to adjudicate President Trump’s eligibility as a candidate, and argue that it does apply to presidents.
“There is nothing unconstitutional about states enforcing constitutional requirements in the absence of federal legislation,” they argued.
