The Colorado’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that former United States President, Donald Trump, is ineligible to run for the White House because of his role in the 2021 assault on the Capitol by his supporters and should be removed from the state’s primary ballot.
The Nation reports that, the historic decision based on the 14th Amendment, barring Trump from the presidential primary ballot, sets up a battle before the nation’s highest court about the fate of next year’s election.
The ruling applies only to the state’s March 5 Republican primary, but its conclusion would likely also affect Trump’s status for the Nov. 5 general election. Nonpartisan U.S. election forecasters view Colorado as safely Democratic, meaning that President Joe Biden will likely carry the state regardless of Trump’s fate.
In a 4-3 decision that will soon be appealed, most of Colorado’s seven justices wrote that the former president “engaged in insurrection.” This decision is sure to draw harsh criticism from Trump’s supporters and loud cheers from those who have denounced his actions since January 6.
The justices stated that President Trump “was unquestionably overt and voluntary in his direct and express efforts, over several months, to urge his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country.”
“Moreover,” they wrote, “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.”
In light of this, the ruling states, “ 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 justices stayed their ruling until Jan. 4, pending appeal.
Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright, Justices Carlos A. Samour Jr. and Maria E. Berkenkotter were the three judges who dissented.
In his dissenting opinion, Boatright stated that the case ought to have been dropped because Trump was not found guilty of any insurrection-related offenses.
The majority’s view, according to Samour, “flies in the face of the due process doctrine.”
The decision comes after a protracted legal battle in Colorado over Trump’s eligibility to run on the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a Civil War-era constitutional provision that bars former office holders from seeking reelection if they swore allegiance to the document and then participated in “insurrection or rebellion” against the United States.
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