{"id":30085,"date":"2023-12-19T23:24:30","date_gmt":"2023-12-20T06:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/donald-trump-blocked-from-presidential-primary-ballot-by-colorado-supreme-court\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:11:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:11:04","slug":"donald-trump-blocked-from-presidential-primary-ballot-by-colorado-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/donald-trump-blocked-from-presidential-primary-ballot-by-colorado-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump blocked from presidential primary ballot by Colorado Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Former
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally, Saturday, Dec. 16, 2023, in Durham, N.H. (AP Photo\/Reba Saldanha)<\/span>Reba Saldanha<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump cannot appear on the state\u2019s Republican presidential primary ballot next year because he engaged in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol.<\/p>\n

The stunning 4-3 decision is almost certain to be immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and is likely to have national ripple effects.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Supreme Court stayed its ruling until Jan. 4 to give the U.S. Supreme Court time to weigh in.<\/p>\n

Colorado\u2019s presidential primary ballot must be set by Jan. 5. Ballots start being mailed to military and overseas voters on Jan. 20. Election Day is March 5.<\/p>\n

All seven justices on the Colorado Supreme Court were appointed by Democratic governors.<\/p>\n

Chief Justice Brian Boatright and Justices Maria Berkenkotter and Carlos Samour Jr. dissented.<\/p>\n

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal political nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., sued Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold in September on behalf of a group of Colorado Republican and unaffiliated voters, arguing that the former president shouldn\u2019t be allowed on the state\u2019s presidential primary ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6 attack.<\/p>\n

The nonprofit, which doesn\u2019t reveal its donors, claimed that Trump violated the so-called \u201cinsurrection clause\u201d in the U.S. Constitution.<\/p>\n

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars \u201cofficers of the United States\u201d who took an \u201coath \u2026 to support the Constitution of the United States\u201d and then \u201cengaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof\u201d from holding federal or state office again.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was first heard in Denver District Court, where Judge Sarah Wallace ruled Nov. 17 that while Trump incited an insurrection on Jan. 6, he can still appear on Colorado\u2019s 2024 Republican presidential primary ballot because he is not an \u201cofficer of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the court\u2019s decision is its reluctance to embrace an interpretation which would disqualify a presidential candidate without a clear, unmistakable indication that such is the intent of Section 3,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington appealed the ruling to the Colorado Supreme Court, arguing that a president is an \u201cofficer of the United States.\u201d Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign also appealed, seeking to invalidate Wallace\u2019s finding that Trump incited an insurrection on the argument state courts don\u2019t have the power to rule on 14th Amendment challenges.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Supreme Court heard arguments in the case on Dec. 6. The court\u2019s justices seemed to struggle with whether the 14th Amendment applies to former presidents.<\/p>\n

Justice Richard Gabriel said it seemed absurd that drafters of the 14th Amendment wouldn\u2019t have meant it to apply to presidents. Justice Monica M\u00e1rquez said in her readings on the case law, \u201cI saw no rational reason for that type of an exclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Samour said it seemed odd that the presidents and vice presidents were specifically called out in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, the so-called insurrection clause.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it was so important that the president be included, why not spell it out?\u201d he asked before packed chambers in downtown Denver, echoing the legal ambiguity on which the lower court\u2019s ruling hinged.<\/p>\n

Similar lawsuits seeking to block Trump from appearing on presidential primary ballots have been filed in other parts of the country, but none have been successful.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs in the Colorado case include Krista Kafer, a Republican activist and political commentator in Colorado; Norma Anderson, a Republican who was formerly the majority leader in the Colorado Senate; Michelle Priola, the wife of state Sen. Kevin Priola, who switched his party affiliation to Democratic from Republican in 2022; and Chris Castilian, former chief of staff for then-Gov. Bill Owens, a Republican.<\/p>\n

Mario Nicolais, a Colorado Sun opinion columnist, is one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

Griswold\u2019s office took a neutral legal stance on the case. But after Wallace\u2019s ruling last month, the Democrat, in TV appearances, expressed shock at the outcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that any official who would engage in insurrection would be barred from taking office except the presidency is incredibly surprising,\u201d she said on MSNBC last month. \u201cThat basically means that the presidency is a get-out-of-jail free card for insurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

decision, which may be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, comes as state elections officials must set the primary ballot by Jan. 5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,1137,28,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80961,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30085\/revisions\/80961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30085"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}