The Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether Donald Trump should remain in Colorado in the 2024 election after his expulsion from the state.
The decision puts the nine justices at the center of the 2024 primary cycle, with oral arguments scheduled for Feb. 8. Trump himself nominated three of the justices currently sitting on the bench – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
It's unusual for the Supreme Court to advance arguments in a case so quickly – a sign of the importance of a decision before states begin printing their primary ballots. Trump faces attempts from Illinois and Massachusetts to kick him out, and Maine's secretary of state has also disqualified him.
Earlier this week, Trump asked the Supreme Court to keep him on the Colorado ballot, formally challenging the Democratic-appointed justices' decision barring him from running in the state's presidential election.
The state Supreme Court ruled last month that Trump could not appear on the ballot under Clause Three of the 14th Amendment because he “committed insurrection.”
It was the first time in history that the provision of the 14th Amendment was used to block a presidential candidate's campaign.
Trump's appeal to the Supreme Court to take up the case on Wednesday comes after Colorado's Republican Party did the same last week – prompting the state to issue a stay and keep the ex-president on the ballot for now.
Donald Trump is challenging a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that removed the former president from the state's 2024 ballot. A separate legal challenge overturned the ruling and will keep Trump on the ballot unless the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the lower court's ruling
The decision puts the nine justices at the center of the 2024 primary cycle, with oral arguments scheduled for Feb. 8
Wednesday's court filing said Colorado's ruling “is not and cannot be correct.”
Trump's lawyers called on the Supreme Court to take up the case, overturn the Colorado ruling and “restore voters' right to vote for the candidate of their choice.”
Additionally, the filing insists that Trump's role in the events of January 6th “was not an insurrection” and that President Trump “was in no way involved in an insurrection.”
Spokesman Steven Cheung said Trump's lawyers are asking the Supreme Court to issue a “clear, summary rejection of the Colorado Supreme Court's erroneous ruling.”
“This is an un-American, unconstitutional act of election interference that cannot stand,” Cheung added.
He also criticized “crooked Joe Biden's comrades” for trying to remove Trump from the election, calling it another attempt by Democrats to “compulsively violate” the Constitution and voters' rights.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Tuesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Trump's case, saying there are “a number of important deadlines” in the state's election calendar and the matter must be resolved quickly.
Maine's secretary of state followed suit and also filed a motion last week to bar Trump from voting in the state, which Trump also appealed to the state Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Michigan, a key swing state, decided Trump could remain on the ballot.
The Colorado Republican Party filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court last week to review the lower court's decision that barred Trump from running in the state's presidential election because of his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
Trump was reinstated on the presidential ballot in Colorado after Republican appeals stayed the ruling that removed him from office under the Constitution's “insurrection clause.”
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced that Trump would remain on the ballot for now, which goes to print on January 5th – unless the Supreme Court affirms the lower court's decision or otherwise declines to hear the appeal.
Although it's unlikely that Colorado's 10 Electoral College votes will go to the Republican candidate in the general election anyway – and the state isn't particularly important in GOP primaries – the ruling could set a precedent for a whole host of other states, those who want to remove Trump from office vote.
The Michigan Supreme Court decided after Colorado to keep the ex-president on the ballot for the state's primaries – and the swing state in the Midwest is much more important for entering the White House in 2024.
Louisiana was one of the latest states to file a lawsuit seeking to bar Trump from the election in connection with the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (pictured July 8, 2022) announced that Trump would remain on the ballot, but expressed support for her state's Supreme Court ruling, saying: “The Supreme Court of Colorado got it right…I demand it.” The U.S. Supreme Court will act quickly as the presidential primaries approach.
Former Trump attorney Jay Sekulow (pictured left) filed a petition on behalf of the Colorado Republican Party, appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court against the Colorado state Supreme Court's 4-3 ruling barring Donald Trump from the 2024 election keep away
“Donald Trump participated in the insurrection and was barred from voting in Colorado under the Constitution,” Griswold said in a news release.
“The Colorado Supreme Court got it right.” That decision is now being appealed,” she continued. “I call on the U.S. Supreme Court to act quickly as the presidential election approaches.”
The Colorado Supreme Court has stayed or stayed its ruling until Jan. 4 to allow time for the appeal process.
Former Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow's conservative American Center for Law & Justice filed a petition last Wednesday that would overturn Colorado's controversial decision.
“We have said from the day we took on this case that this case would end up in the U.S. Supreme Court,” Seklow wrote in a statement accompanying the filing along with his son Jordan.
“Today we just filed a petition for certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court's dangerously flawed twisting of the 14th Amendment that disqualified President Trump from the election,” the father-son couple wrote. Duo representing Colorado's GOP.
“This is the most important case we have ever taken on,” they added. “Because if we lose our right to vote, we lose our constitutional republic.”
“We expect this case to move forward very quickly and we will keep you updated on its progress.”
The first impact of the appeal is to extend the stay of Colorado's highest court's 4-3 ruling. That puts the decision on hold until Jan. 4 — the day before ballots for the state's primary election hit the printers — or until an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is completed, whichever comes first.
Trump says he also still plans to appeal the ruling to the country's highest court.
The Supreme Court has never ruled on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was added after the Civil War to prevent former Confederates from returning to government.
The clause states that anyone who has sworn an oath to “support” the Constitution and then “revolted” against it cannot hold government office – but the section specifically mentions several offices without directly naming the presidency .
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that this applied to Trump after he encouraged his supporters to take part in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. When the rioters arrived in Washington DC, they sought to prevent the certification of President Joe Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election
Four judges appointed by Democratic governors, Richard L. Gabriel, Melissa Hart, William W. Hood III and Monica Márquez, all circled, voted to disqualify the former president from Colorado's presidential election
“The Colorado Supreme Court has barred the leading Republican candidate from the primary and general ballots, fundamentally changing the course of American democracy,” lawyers for the Colorado Republican Party wrote.
The filing was posted on the website of a group led by Jay Sekulow, a former Trump lawyer representing the Colorado Republican Party, who announced Wednesday he would appeal.
Colorado Republican Party Chairman Dave Williams confirmed the appeal was filed Wednesday.
The lawyers added: “Unless the Colorado Supreme Court's decision is overturned, every voter has the power to disqualify a political candidate in Colorado or in any other jurisdiction that follows its lead.”
“Not only will this distort the 2024 presidential election, but it will also embroil the courts in future political controversies over nebulous allegations of insurrection.”
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to take up the case, either after Colorado Republicans' appeal or Trump's own appeal.
If Trump does not take part in the election in Colorado, it would have minimal impact on his campaign because he does not need the state, which he lost by 13 percentage points in 2020, to win the Electoral College in the presidential election. But it could open the door to courts or election officials barring him from voting in other must-win states.
Sean Grimsley, a lawyer for the plaintiffs seeking to disqualify Trump in Colorado, said on a legal podcast last week that he hopes the nation's highest court will move quickly once it takes on the case, as he expects it will.
“We're obviously going to be asking for an extremely accelerated timetable for all the reasons I've given. We have a primary on Super Tuesday and we need to know the answer,” Grimsley said.
More than a dozen states, including Colorado, will hold primaries on March 5 on Super Tuesday, the largest single-day primary contest.
The Colorado Supreme Court argues that Trump participated in an insurrection and is therefore barred from running under Clause 3 of the 14th Amendment – but Republicans argue that the ex-president was never charged with insurrection. Pictured: Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to block Congress' certification of Joe Biden's 2020 election victory
The Colorado case was considered the case with the greatest chance of success because it was brought by a Washington, D.C.-based liberal group with extensive legal resources – and all seven of Colorado's Supreme Court justices were appointed by Democrats.
Still, three of those Democratic-appointed judges opposed the decision.
The unprecedented constitutional questions in this case are not divided along clear party lines, with several prominent conservative legal theorists among the most vocal supporters of disqualifying Trump under Section 3.
Additionally, the half-dozen plaintiffs in the Colorado case are all Republican or unaffiliated voters.
Trump has sharply criticized the cases on his Truth Social account and at his rallies, calling them “election interference.”
He continued on Wednesday as he welcomed a Michigan Supreme Court ruling that kept him on the ballot at least for that state's primary.
“The people of Colorado have embarrassed our nation with what they did,” Trump said on Sean Hannity’s radio show.