A judge’s decision not to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot in Colorado despite ruling that he was an insurrectionist is being appealed.
Last week, a Colorado court made a factual finding that Trump was an insurrectionist, but ruled that he still belongs on the ballot. The lawsuit that tried to get him removed, launched by a collection of Republican and unaffiliated voters, argued that Trump’s activities on Jan. 6 fly in the face of the 14th Amendment in the U.S. Constitution, and a similar law in Colorado, that bars people from holding public office if they are insurrectionists.
“We always knew this case would end up before the Colorado Supreme Court, and have been preparing for that from the beginning,” said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
“We are planning to build on the trial judge’s incredibly important ruling that Donald Trump engaged in insurrection, and we are ready to take this case as far as necessary to ensure that Donald Trump is removed from the ballot.”
The judge in the case ruled that the oath of office for a president doesn’t demand that he or she “support” the Constitution, only that they “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution. As such, the judge claimed that the “presidency” was not a position that fell under the amendment.
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Judge Sarah Wallace wrote, “It appears to the court that for whatever reason the drafters of Section 3 did not intend to include a person who had only taken the presidential oath.”
The amendment reads: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”
Colorado state law outlines, “Any person who, with the intent by force of arms to obstruct, retard, or resist the execution of any law of this state, engages, cooperates, or participates with any armed force or with an armed force invades any portion of this state commits insurrection.”
Trump was found to have qualified for that definition.
