Jan. 3 (UPI) — Former President Donald Trump appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to reverse a Colorado court’s ruling, removing him from the state’s Republican primary ballot, as his campaign called his disqualification an “unAmerican, unconstitutional act of election interference.”
In the petition, Trump’s lawyers argued that banning the former president would “mark the first time in the history of the United States that the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major-party presidential candidate.”
The Colorado Supreme Court disqualified Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot on Dec. 19, by a vote of 4 to 3. The court ruled that the former president was ineligible to run for the White House because of the 14th Amendment’s insurrectionist ban.
In Wednesday’s petition, Trump’s lawyers argued that the former president did not engage in insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and that any decision to ban a candidate can only be determined by Congress.
“The question of eligibility to serve as President of the United States is properly reserved for Congress, not the state courts, to consider and decide,” lawyers argued. “By considering the question of President Trump’s eligibility and barring him from the ballot, the Colorado Supreme Court arrogated Congress’ authority.”
The petition also included the full transcript of Trump’s speech, from before the Capitol riots, which his lawyers claimed called for “peaceful protesting.”
“President Trump never told his supporters to enter the Capitol, either in his speech at the Ellipse or in any of his statements or communications before or during the events at the Capitol,” his attorneys wrote. “To the contrary, his only explicit instructions called for protesting ‘peacefully and patriotically’ to ‘support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement.'”
Colorado was the first of two states to disqualify Trump from the 2024 primary ballot. Maine has also banned Trump from appearing on its state ballot next year.
In addition to Trump’s appeal Wednesday, Colorado Republicans filed an appeal to the Supreme Court citing “an irreparable effect on the election process.”
On Tuesday, Trump filed an appeal to Maine’s decision, as he called Secretary of State Shenna Bellows a “biased decision maker.”The 11-page complaint was filed in Kennebec County Superior Court.
