Former President Donald Trump will be allowed on Colorado‘s 2024 primary ballot — at least for the time being — after the state’s Republican Party asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that disqualified him.
“With the appeal filed, Donald Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado’s 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot when certification occurs on January 5, 2024, unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take the case or otherwise affirms the Colorado Supreme Court ruling,” said a release from Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office on Thursday obtained by The Daily Wire.
In a 4-3 decision last week, the Colorado Supreme Court found Trump ineligible to appear on the primary ballot due to his efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election leading up to the U.S. Capitol breach on January 6, 2021, but placed the ruling on hold until January 4, pending an expected appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Lawyers for the Colorado Republican Party announced they had filed a petition on Wednesday.
“The state has interfered in the primary election by unreasonably restricting the Party’s ability to select its candidates,” the Colorado GOP’s filing said. “As a natural and inevitable result, the state has interfered with the Party’s ability to place on the general election ballot the candidate of its choice. And it has done so based on a subjective claim of insurrection the state lacks any constitutional authority to make.”
The case hinges on the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause, which is widely viewed as being designed to block former officials from returning to public office after the Civil War if they joined the Confederacy. Similar cases in other states, including Michigan, have been dismissed or remain active.
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Griswold, a Democrat, said in a statement, “Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and was disqualified under the Constitution from the Colorado Ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court got it right. This decision is now being appealed. I urge the U.S. Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election.”
A number of “key dates” are coming up in the weeks ahead, according to Griswold’s office, including the January 5 deadline to “certify the names and party affiliations of candidates on the 2024 Presidential Primary Ballot” and a U.S. Supreme Court conference day on the same date. In the weeks that follow, officials will start to send mail-in ballots out to voters. In-person voting for the primary begins on February 26 and primary day is set for March 5.
