Lawyers for Trump urge the Supreme Court ‘to put a swift and decisive end’ to ballot removal efforts
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for former President Donald Trump urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to “quickly and decisively end” efforts to kick him out of the 2024 presidential race over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
In a written filing, Trump’s lawyers called on the court to reverse a unique Colorado Supreme Court decision that said Trump should not appear at the state’s Republican primary due to his role in the events which culminated in the January elections. August 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.
The justices will hear arguments on February 8 in a case that both sides say must be resolved quickly so voters know whether Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, is eligible to run for president.
The court is hearing the dispute within a short window that could lead to a decision before Super Tuesday on March 5, when the largest number of delegates in a single day will be up for grabs, including in Colorado.
The case presents the Supreme Court for the first time with a provision of the 14th Amendment that bars some people who have “rebelled” from holding public office. The amendment was passed in 1868, after the Civil War.
Efforts to keep Trump off the ballot “threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and … promise to unleash mayhem and mayhem if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead and exclude the likely Republican presidential nominee from their ballots,” lawyers say Trump. wrote.
Trump should win for many reasons, they wrote, including because he has not engaged in an insurrection. “In fact, the opposite is true, as President Trump has repeatedly called for peace, patriotism, and law and order,” the lawyers wrote.
The Colorado court noted that Trump had held a rally outside the White House and urged his supporters to “fight like hell” before walking to the Capitol.
Trump’s Supreme Court team is led by Texas-based attorney Jonathan Mitchell, who crafted aspects of the anti-abortion legislation that largely halted abortion in Texas months before the Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade decision in June 2022 .
Republican members of Congress, attorneys general and Republican legislative leaders in 27 states, and three former U.S. attorneys general, including one who served Trump, are among those who have spoken out in support of him in the Colorado case.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Mike Johnson are among nearly 180 Republicans in Congress who have warned that a ruling supporting Colorado’s decision to kick Trump out of the ballot removal would inevitably lead to the disqualification of political opponents.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled last month by a 4-3 vote that Trump cannot participate in the Republican primaries.
A two-sentence provision in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states that anyone who has sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution and then “rebelled against it” is no longer eligible to hold state or federal office. After Congress passed an amnesty for most former allies in 1872, the provision fell into disuse until dozens of lawsuits were filed to keep Trump off the ballot this year. Only the one in Colorado was successful.
Trump is separately appealing in state court a ruling by Democratic Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows that he is ineligible to appear on that state’s ballot over his role in the attack on the Capitol. Both the Colorado Supreme Court and the Maine Secretary of State’s ruling have been stayed until the appeals are completed.
The Supreme Court’s decision to intervene, which both sides have called for, is the most direct involvement in presidential elections since Bush versus Gore in 2000, when a conservative majority effectively decided the election of Republican George W. Bush. Only Judge Clarence Thomas remains of that court.
Three of the nine current Supreme Court justices were appointed by Trump, though they have repeatedly ruled against him in 2020 election-related lawsuits, as well as on his efforts to prevent documents related to Jan. 6 and his tax returns from being turned over to congressional committees.
The question of whether Trump can appear on the ballot isn’t the only issue involving the former president or Jan. 6 that has reached the Supreme Court. The justices last month rejected a request from special counsel Jack Smith to quickly review and rule on Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution in a case accusing him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 presidential election. to do, although the issue may return to court. soon depending on the ruling of a Washington-based appeals court.
And the court has said it plans to hear an appeal that could overturn hundreds of charges stemming from the Capitol riot, including against Trump.