New Delhi: Former US President Donald Trump has been disqualified from holding office and running for re-election in the 2024 Presidential elections from Colorado, as the state’s apex court found him guilty of ‘insurrection’ for his role in the 6 January US Capitol attack in 2021.
This landmark 4-3 ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court made Trump the first Presidential candidate to be declared ineligible for the White House under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies people who engage in insurrection against the Constitution after taking an oath to support it or hold office. However, the ruling has been stayed until 4 January, to allow Trump to appeal the judgment.
The Trump campaign will now take this ruling to the US Supreme Court — whose 6-3 conservative majority includes three Trump appointees — which will consider if the former president is eligible for another term.
If Trump appeals before the 4 January stay lapses, the hold will continue until the Supreme Court rules. Colorado’s ruling could force the Supreme Court to decide Trump’s fate in not just one state but across the US.
The 14th Amendment was ratified after the US Civil War. Section 3 aims to block supporters of the confederacy from serving in the government once southern states re-joined the Union. This is the first time it was used against a Presidential candidate.
The majority justices stated, “We do not reach these conclusions lightly. We 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 favour, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”
While Trump was indicted in August in Washington, under four charges for his role in the January 6 Capitol riots, this case in Colorado was brought up by a group of state voters, along with the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, who believed that Trump should be disqualified for inciting his supporters to attack the Capitol in a failed plot to stop the transfer of presidential power to Biden after the 2020 election.
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What the ruling said
Without addressing the general elections, Colorado’s top court directs the Colorado secretary of state to exclude Trump’s name from the state’s Republican primary ballot. However, the ruling has been stayed until 4 January.
The ruling stated, “President Trump did not merely incite the insurrection. Even when the siege on the Capitol was fully underway, he continued to support it by repeatedly demanding that Vice President [Mike] Pence refuse to perform his constitutional duty and by calling Senators to persuade them to stop the counting of electoral votes. These actions constituted overt, voluntary, and direct participation in the insurrection.”
This judgment reverses an earlier ruling by a lower court judge, who found Trump guilty of insurrection in the 6 January US Capitol riot but ruled that the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause did not apply to presidents because the section did not explicitly mention them.
This decision does not apply to states other than Colorado. It only applies to the upcoming state primary elections on 5 March, where Republican voters will pick their candidate for President as well as the general elections in the state next November.
Courts have rejected several lawsuits seeking to keep Trump off the primary ballot in other states. New Hampshire, Minnesota and Michigan also made similar attempts to remove Trump from the ballot using the Constitution’s insurrection clause earlier this year but failed. While the Minnesota Supreme Court observed that the issue was political and the state party can put anyone on its primary ballot, the Michigan court of appeals said it won’t prevent Trump from the state’s Republican ballot.
US election predictions viewed Colorado as Democratic, meaning that President Joe Biden will likely win in the state regardless of Trump’s ruling.
Trump’s campaign has already denounced the ruling, calling it “completely flawed”.
In a statement, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said, “Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice”
“We will swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision. We have full confidence that the US Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favour and finally put an end to these unAmerican lawsuits,” Cheung added.
Trump has been facing a wave of legal investigations over the past year, on a series of charges including forgery, soliciting public officers, hoarding classified documents in his private residence in Mar-a-Lago and attempting to overturn the 2020 election. On the whole, he faces 91 criminal counts in four separate cases filed in Georgia, Florida, Washington and New York.
Despite being charged, prior to this judgment, he was still eligible to run for office as the US Constitution does not restrict those charged, convicted of a crime, or even serving jail time, from running or winning the presidency.
The three Colorado Supreme Court justices, who were in the minority, criticised Tuesday’s ruling. One of the justices, Carlos Samour, said that a lawsuit is not a fair process for determining Trump’s eligibility for the ballot because it deprives him of his right to due process, noting that a jury has not convicted him of insurrection. He also warned of “chaos” as a consequence of the ruling.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
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