Dec. 27 (UPI) — Colorado Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to overturn a recent state court ruling that disqualifies former President Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 ballot.
The 45-page petition for appeal means Trump will remain on Colorado’s Republican primary ballot on March 5, pending the Supreme Court’s decision on whether to hear the case and if so, its decision. Trump’s legal team is expected to file his appeal soon.
“The drastic effects of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision on the 2024 primary election necessitates this court’s immediate review,” the Colorado Republican Party argued in Wednesday’s filing.
“By excluding President Trump from the ballot, the Colorado Supreme Court engaged in an unprecedented disregard for the First Amendment right of political parties to select the candidates of their choice and a usurpation of the rights of the people to choose their elected officials,” lawyers wrote, adding that the ruling will have “an irreparable effect on the election process.”
The petition also argues that Colorado’s state Supreme Court incorrectly applied the Constitution’s “insurrectionist ban” to presidents, even though the office is not mentioned.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Dec. 19, in a vote of 4 to 3, that the former president was not eligible to run for the White House because of the 14th Amendment’s insurrectionist ban.
The 14th Amendment states that officials who take an oath to support the U.S. Constitution are banned from future office if they “engaged in insurrection.”
“We conclude that the foregoing evidence, the great bulk of which was undisputed at trial, established that President Trump engaged in insurrection,” the court ruled last week, as Trump blasted the decision.
“A ruling party is attempting to amass total control over America by rigging the election against its leading opponent who happens to be a political outsider committed to defending the needs and interests of hardworking Americans,” Trump said. “This is how dictatorships are born.”
While Michigan’s Supreme Court rejected a similar lawsuit Wednesday and ruled that Trump can remain on its state GOP primary ballot, other challenges are pending in Maine and Oregon.
Colorado Republicans urged the U.S. Supreme Court to quickly set a precedent.
“With the number of challenges to President Trump’s candidacy now pending in other states, ranging from lawsuits to administrative proceedings, there is a real risk the Colorado Supreme Court majority’s flawed and unprecedented analysis will be borrowed, and the resulting grave legal error repeated.”
