\u201cA majority of the court holds that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,\u201d the court wrote in its 4-3 decision.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\nDENVER (AP) \u2014 A divided Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution\u2019s insurrection clause and removed him from the state\u2019s presidential primary ballot, setting up a likely showdown in the nation\u2019s highest court to decide whether the front-runner for the GOP nomination can remain in the race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The decision from a court whose justices were all appointed by Democratic governors marks the first time in history that\u00a0Section 3 of the 14th Amendment\u00a0has been used to disqualify a presidential candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA majority of the court holds that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,\u201d the court wrote in its 4-3 decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The court stayed its decision until Jan. 4, or until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe do not reach these conclusions lightly,\u201d wrote the court\u2019s majority. \u201cWe are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s attorneys had promised to appeal any disqualification immediately to the nation\u2019s highest court, which has the final say about constitutional matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Colorado Supreme Court issued a completely flawed decision tonight and we will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision,\u201d Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement Tuesday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump lost Colorado by 13 percentage points in 2020 and doesn\u2019t need the state to win next year\u2019s presidential election. But the danger for the former president is that more courts and election officials will follow Colorado\u2019s lead and exclude Trump from must-win states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Colorado officials say the issue must be settled by Jan. 5, the deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed nationally to disqualify Trump under Section 3, which was designed to keep former Confederates from returning to government after the Civil War. It bars from office anyone who swore an oath to \u201csupport\u201d the Constitution and then \u201cengaged in insurrection or rebellion\u201d against it, and has been used only a handful of times since the decade after the Civil War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Colorado case is the first where the plaintiffs succeeded. After a weeklong hearing in November, District Judge Sarah B. Wallace found that Trump indeed had \u201cengaged in insurrection\u201d by inciting the\u00a0Jan. 6 attack\u00a0on the Capitol, and\u00a0her ruling that kept him on the ballot\u00a0was a fairly technical one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s attorneys convinced Wallace that, because the language in Section 3 refers to \u201cofficers of the United States\u201d who take an oath to \u201csupport\u201d the Constitution, it must not apply to the president, who is not included as an \u201cofficer of the United States\u201d elsewhere in the document and whose oath is to \u201cpreserve, protect and defend\u201d the Constitution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The provision also says offices covered include senator, representative, electors of the president and vice president, and all others \u201cunder the United States,\u201d but doesn\u2019t name the presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state\u2019s highest court didn\u2019t agree, siding with attorneys for six Colorado Republican and unaffiliated voters who argued that it was nonsensical to imagine the framers of the amendment, fearful of former Confederates returning to power, would bar them from low-level offices but not the highest one in the land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou\u2019d be saying a rebel who took up arms against the government couldn\u2019t be a county sheriff, but could be the president,\u201d attorney Jason Murray said in\u00a0arguments before the court\u00a0in early December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s attorneys argued unsuccessfully that the writers of the amendment expected the Electoral College to prevent former insurrectionists from becoming president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They also had urged the Colorado high court to reverse Wallace\u2019s ruling that Trump incited the Jan. 6 attack. His lawyers argued the then-president had simply been using his free speech rights and hadn\u2019t called for violence. Trump attorney Scott Gessler also argued the attack was more of a \u201criot\u201d than an insurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That met skepticism from several of the justices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhy isn\u2019t it enough that a violent mob breached the Capitol when Congress was performing a core constitutional function?\u201d Justice William W. Hood III said during the Dec. 6 arguments. \u201cIn some ways, that seems like a poster child for insurrection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the ruling issued Tuesday, the court\u2019s majority dismissed the arguments that Trump wasn\u2019t responsible for his supporters\u2019 violent attack, which was intended to halt Congress\u2019 certification of the presidential vote: \u201cPresident Trump then gave a speech in which he literally exhorted his supporters to fight at the Capitol,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Colorado Supreme Court Justices Richard L. Gabriel, Melissa Hart, William W. Hood III and Monica M\u00e1rquez ruled for the petitioners. Chief Justice Brian D. Boatright dissented, arguing the constitutional questions were too complex to be solved in a state hearing. Justices Maria E. Berkenkotter and Carlos Samour also dissented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur government cannot deprive someone of the right to hold public office without due process of law,\u201d Samour wrote in his dissent. \u201cEven if we are convinced that a candidate committed horrible acts in the past \u2014 dare I say, engaged in insurrection \u2014 there must be procedural due process before we can declare that individual disqualified from holding public office.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Colorado ruling stands in contrast with the\u00a0Minnesota Supreme Court, which last month decided that the state party can put anyone it wants on its primary ballot. It dismissed a Section 3 lawsuit but said the plaintiffs could try again during the general election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In another 14th Amendment case,\u00a0a Michigan judge\u00a0ruled that Congress, not the judiciary, should decide whether Trump can stay on the ballot. That ruling is\u00a0being appealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The liberal group behind those cases, Free Speech For People, also filed another lawsuit in Oregon seeking to bounce Trump from the ballot there. The Colorado case was filed by another liberal group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both groups are financed by liberal donors who also support President Joe Biden. Trump has blamed the president for the lawsuits against him, even though Biden has no role in them, saying his rival is \u201cdefacing the constitution\u201d to try to end his campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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