Donald Trump was barred from the presidential primary ballot in Colorado, as that state’s highest court became the first to say he had forfeited his right to run for re-election by inciting the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
Colorado’s Supreme Court issued the ruling on December 19, but paused its effect to allow time for Trump to appeal to the US Supreme Court. Trump’s campaign said he would appeal. He has until January 4, under the state court’s ruling.
The case centers on a post-Civil War-era provision of the US Constitution that bans insurrectionists from holding public office. The Colorado case is the first constitutional challenge to Trump’s 2024 run to go to trial in connection with his actions to overturn the 2020 election, including inciting followers to attack the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“President Trump’s direct and express efforts, over several months, exhorting his supporters to march to the Capitol to prevent what he falsely characterized as an alleged fraud on the people of this country were indisputably overt and voluntary,” according to the ruling.
“Moreover, the evidence amply showed that President Trump undertook all these actions to aid and further a common unlawful purpose that he himself conceived and set in motion: prevent Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election and stop the peaceful transfer of power,” the court said.
Trump plans to immediately appeal to the US Supreme Court and seek a stay preventing the ruling from taking effect, according to a statement from his campaign.
“Democrat Party leaders are in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead President Trump has amassed in the polls,” according to the statement. “They have lost faith in the failed Biden presidency and are now doing everything they can to stop the American voters from throwing them out of office next November.”
Voters represented by the advocacy group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics argued Trump should be barred from the ballot for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
“The court’s decision today affirms what our clients alleged in this lawsuit: that Donald Trump is an insurrectionist who disqualified himself from office,” Noah Bookbinder, president of CREW, said in a statement. “Our Constitution clearly states that those who violate their oath by attacking our democracy are barred from serving in government.”
Trump has faced dozens of lawsuits across the country this year claiming he’s ineligible for another term in the White House under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The provision states that a person who took an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” is ineligible to hold office again.
Although Republicans have been successful in Colorado, its governors and both US senators are Democrats, as is a majority of its House delegation.
Biden won the state and its nine electoral votes in 2020, and Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee in 2016, was victorious in 2016.
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