Supreme Court Gives Colorado Secretary of State 10 Minutes to Argue Why Trump Should Be Blocked From Ballot

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold speaks during a committee meeting in Baton Rouge, La. on July 8, 2022. Matthew Hinton/AP Photo

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday granted Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold—who called former President Donald Trump an “ineligible insurrectionist”—just 10 minutes at a hearing next week to argue before the court why she thinks he should be barred from the ballot.

Ms. Griswold, a Democrat and fierce Trump critic, has filed multiple briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court, which is weighing whether to rule in favor of or against the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to bar President Trump from the ballot on 14th amendment grounds.

In a Jan. 26 filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, Ms. Griswold asked for enlargement and division of time for oral arguments at a hearing next week so that she could have time to provide the court with an “important perspective” on Colorado’s election laws.

The Supreme Court said in its decision that it would grant Ms. Griswold just 10 minutes to make her case for why, according to her subsequent Jan. 31 filing, President Trump supposedly engaged in an insurrection and so should be barred from appearing on Colorado’s presidential ballot.

Even though Ms. Griswold did not take a position on President Trump’s eligibility during a trial in district court, she’s revealed her anti-Trump bias repeatedly, including when she went on CNN to denounce the former president as a “danger to American democracy.”

But when, on appeal, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled to bar President Trump from the ballot based on the idea that he had “engaged in insurrection” by delivering a speech on Jan. 6, Ms. Griswold said the court “got it right.”

Ms. Griswold will now get 10 minutes on Feb. 8 to make her case as to why she thinks that, when President Trump told his supporters to demonstrate “peacefully and patriotically” before Congress, he should be prohibited from running for the nation’s highest office—even though he’s the frontrunner by far for the Republican presidential nomination.

Colorado Ruling

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Dec. 19 that President Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot on grounds of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which is known as the disqualification clause.

It states that no person shall hold office if they have “previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States” and engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” against the government.

President Trump held a rally near the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, in which he made statements encouraging his supporters to march to the Capitol, where Congress was in the process of certifying the results of the presidential election.

While he said in his speech that protesters should “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard,” some have seized on a portion of his remarks where he said “we fight like hell” and “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore” as a call for violence.

While President Trump has insisted he meant his remarks metaphorically, the violence that unfolded on Jan. 6 have given fuel to the argument that the events of that day amounted to an insurrection and that he incited it.

That was the basic premise of the Colorado Supreme Court ruling, which Ms. Griswold agreed with and elaborated on in her Jan. 31 brief with the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Just as Colorado cannot be forced to place on its presidential primary ballot a naturalized citizen, a minor, or someone twice elected to the presidency, it also should not be forced to include a candidate found by its courts to have violated his oath to support the Constitution by engaging in insurrection,” Ms. Griswold’s brief argues.

“This Court should affirm and uphold Colorado’s right to exclude from its presidential ballots ineligible insurrectionists,” she said in the brief, while also arguing that, by siding with the Colorado Supreme Court decision, the nation’s highest court would “ensure voters are not disenfranchised” by wasting their vote on an ineligible candidate.

President Trump has denounced the Colorado Supreme Court decision as biased and has repeatedly labeled the various 14th Amendment cases in other states as election interference.

What Will SCOTUS Do?

While it’s unclear how the U.S. Supreme Court will rule in the case, it has indicated that it intends to issue written opinions on Feb. 8, the day that Ms. Griswold will have 10 minutes to make her case.

President Trump’s attorneys will have 40 minutes to present oral arguments, while the respondents will have 30 minutes.

Legal experts have said there are several ways the Supreme Court could reverse the Colorado decision without weighing into the substance of whether President Trump “engaged in insurrection” on Jan. 6.

One such way would be for the Supreme Court to say that the U.S. president isn’t an “officer of the United States” but part of the executive branch and rule that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment simply doesn’t apply.

The nation’s top court could also vacate the Colorado court’s decision and instruct it to revisit the case at a later date.

In a recent appearance on Fox News’ Sean Hannity, President Trump said that he’s confident that the Supreme Court “is going to say, ‘We’re not going to take the vote away from the people.’”