Former President Donald Trump was barred from running for re-election in Colorado on Tuesday, the result of the state’s narrow 4-3 Supreme Court ruling that he had engaged in insurrection during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
It’s the first time a court has disqualified a presidential candidate based on a provision of the 14th Amendment, which precludes insurrectionists from holding office.
“A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the Colorado Supreme Court decision states. “Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”
Trump’s campaign immediately signaled its intention to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which many legal scholars hold is the only entity that can decide whether a candidate is banned. Some dispute whether the 14th Amendment provisions were meant to include the presidency.
Despite all his legal troubles, Trump is the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, and Colorado, with its ten electoral votes, isn’t vital to Trump’s re-election hopes. However, the greater danger for the 45th president is if states that are vital to his hopes use Colorado as a precedent-setter.
Ironically, it was members of his party who first floated the idea this fall that the 14th Amendment — which initially was aimed at keeping Confederate Civil War loyalists from holding office — also applied to Trump. Six Republican and independent voters from Colorado introduced the provision as grounds for a lawsuit to disqualify Trump.
“We do not reach these conclusions lightly,” the state supreme court’s majority wrote. “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 favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”
The state court stayed its ruling until Jan. 4 in anticipation of a Jan. 5 deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots.
