Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) stated that she has certified the 2024 Colorado Presidential Primary ballot and that Donald Trump’s name was included. This was due to the United States Supreme Court’s decision to accept Trump’s appeal of Colorado’s ruling to exclude him from the ballot.
The contention regarding Trump’s ballot eligibility in Colorado stems from a lawsuit filed by four Republican and two independent voters on behalf of a group called “Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington” (CREW).
CREW has proven to be a highly partisan Democrat organization, filing its first lawsuit against Trump three days after his inauguration, and launching actions against his administration at the rate of about one per day. Its list of America’s most corrupt politicians includes 63 Republicans and only 25 Democrats. It has been run by prominent Democratic figures such as David Brock and Richard Painter. The latter ran in the 2018 U.S. Senate special election in Minnesota.
CREW argued that Donald Trump is ineligible for the Colorado ballot based on the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states in Section 3 that anyone who has engaged in insurrection is ineligible to hold office:
“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office … shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
The Colorado Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision upheld Trump’s exclusion from the ballot.
Griswold stated on X, formerly known as Twitter, “The American people deserve to know whether a president can engage in insurrection and then return to office”. Many see the hubris in this statement, as “insurrection” is a crime whose guilt or innocence is decided by a criminal trial. Trump’s trial for the insurrection charges will not take place until at least March. Until the result of that trial, due process states that Trump must be presumed innocent.
The tactic of leaving Trump off the ballot has been attempted in other states.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Donald Trump can be barred from the ballot.
While many cases challenging the former president's eligibility have been dismissed, Maine and Colorado have disqualified him under the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment. pic.twitter.com/Rbjeti0SW0
— PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) January 5, 2024
In Maine, the Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows excluded Trump from the ballot on similar Fourteenth Amendment grounds.
In Michigan, an attempt to exclude Trump has been struck down by that state’s Supreme Court.
In numerous other states, similar challenges have been dismissed.
Supreme Court oral arguments to settle the issue on a national level are scheduled for February 8th.
Trump is the subject of numerous civil and criminal charges filed by Democrat politicians in various jurisdictions in the past year, anticipating his possible status as the GOP presidential frontrunner. Many have observed that all the efforts to financially strap and disrupt the former president in his campaign efforts may have had the opposite effect. Trump’s Atlanta mugshot has been a rallying cry, and items with this image have been top sellers.
