I think the US Supreme Court should have taken Trump’s election subversion case not left it to the individual states. While Trump is not guilty until proven so, if the Supremes won’t decide the states don’t have another option to keep him out of office. We all saw what happened on January 6, 2021.
And can only imagine what will happen on Jan 6, 2029.Quote:
Originally Posted by misskit
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Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
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Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
:rofl:
Surely we need a new Trump thread for every state that blocks him?
:rolleyes:
I reckon they can all go on one. :rolleyes:
Yes, because they want a convicted rapist, who took their freedom of choice away from them.Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
:rofl:Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
All will be overturned by the Supreme court long before Nov next year. Just more silly "breaking news".
^ If that were certain, they would have ruled already. Cowards, they are.
A 'bit of tourism".Quote:
Originally Posted by misskit
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Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
we :rofl:Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
Agreed, this needs to be sorted out at the Federal level not by individual states. All cases against Trump need to be dealt with quickly.Quote:
Originally Posted by misskit
Yeah but there are so many of them and he can't be in two places at once.Quote:
Originally Posted by Troy
The Colorado Republican Party asked the Supreme Court to reinstate Donald Trump on the primary ballot — officially dragging the nation’s top court into the fight over whether the former president can be legally barred from office.
The state Republican committee asked the court late Wednesday to overturn the ruling issued by the Colorado Supreme Court earlier this month, when it struck Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot. The court ruled that Trump engaged in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, disqualifying him from the presidency under an interpretation of the 14th Amendment — but paused its ruling until the Supreme Court could weigh in.
The state GOP’s petition argues three points: The office of the presidency is not covered by the 14th Amendment, the insurrection clause is not “self-executing” — meaning Congress alone must enforce it, and states cannot make that determination on their own — and that by kicking Trump off the primary ballot, the state Republican Party’s First Amendment rights of association have been violated.
The party is represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative Christian law group. Jay Sekulow, who defended Trump during his first impeachment trial, is the organization’s chief counsel.
The Colorado court’s decision earlier this month to bar Trump from the ballot was a landmark one, supercharging the legal efforts to have Trump barred from office, which has been pushed by a strange bedfellows group of liberal activists and conservative judicial scholars.
Their argument rests on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was passed following the Civil War to stop former Confederates from holding office. The amendment reads that those “having previously taken an oath” to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. cannot hold public office.
Trump’s legal team has maintained he did not engage in the insurrection in the first place. But they’ve also added that, because of the wording of the amendment, it does not apply to the office of the presidency.
So far, Colorado’s top court is the only one in the country to find Trump ineligible to run. Other state Supreme Courts — like Minnesota in November and Michigan on Wednesday — have effectively punted on the issue, allowing Trump to appear on states’ primary ballots while leaving the door open for further challenges for his general election eligibility.
http://media.aclj.org/pdf/Colorado-R...A_Redacted.pdf
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Could this be decided state-by-state?
Almost certainly not. Trump’s allies have already asked the Supreme Court to weigh in, and the widely accepted view in the legal community is that Colorado’s plunge on the issue will push the high court to step in. Maine’s decision may fuel that view further, and with similar petitions pending in other states, it may force the Supreme Court into action.
:)Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
we :)Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
No "almost" to it. Certainly not....full stop.Quote:
Originally Posted by S Landreth
Trump's eligibility for the ballot is being challenged under the 14th Amendment. Here are the notable cases.
Washington — Decisions in Maine and Colorado finding that former President Donald Trump is disqualified from holding public office have rested on a 155-year-old constitutional provision that was seldom used in modern times, but has now been invoked in escalating legal challenges from across the country targeting Trump's eligibility to hold the presidency again.
The efforts aimed at Trump's ability to appear on ballots under the Constitution's so-called insurrection clause, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, began just months after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. That's when the liberal advocacy group Free Speech for People sent letters to the top election officials in all 50 states urging them to bar the former president from the ballot as a candidate for the White House in 2024.
Since then, legal challenges to Trump's eligibility under the measure have been brought in federal and state courts in more than two dozen states — 26 cases were filed by a little-known Republican presidential candidate named John Anthony Castro. Most cases brought by Castro have been dismissed, either voluntarily or by the courts. In 14 states, there are cases pending, according to Lawfare, a national security website that is tracking the Section 3 cases.
But in Colorado, a case brought by a group of voters became the first victory in the effort against Trump, when the state Supreme Court found he is disqualified from holding office again.
In a handful of other states, secretaries of state have said they cannot unilaterally remove Trump from the ballot. But Maine's secretary of state became the first to do so Thursday night, when she issued a decision finding that Trump is not qualified to hold the presidency because of his conduct surrounding the Jan. 6 attack and should be removed from the primary ballot.
The Colorado and Maine challenges have been the only ones to succeed in declaring Trump ineligible under Section 3, though the question of whether he can appear on the 2024 ballot is likely to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Here are the other states where noteworthy efforts have been underway to keep Trump off their primary ballots:
California
Shortly after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump is disqualified from holding the presidency under Section 3, California's lieutenant governor asked the secretary of state to explore "every legal option" to remove Trump from the state's primary ballot.
"California must stand on the right side of history," Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis wrote to Secretary of State Shirley Weber in a Dec. 20 letter. "California is obligated to determine if Trump is ineligible for the California ballot for the same reasons described in Anderson (the Colorado case). The Colorado decision can be the basis for a similar decision here in our state. The constitution is clear: you must be 35 years old and not be an insurrectionist."
In response, Weber told Kounalakis in a letter last week that there are "complex legal issues surrounding this matter," and said any decision on whether to list Trump on the primary ballot must "be grounded firmly in the laws and processes in place in California and our Constitution." Both Kounalakis and Weber are Democrats.
Trump's name will appear on the state's primary ballot, as Weber released on Thursday night a certified list of presidential candidates for California's March 5 primary that included the former president.
Colorado
In a landmark decision on Dec. 19, the Colorado Supreme Court found that Trump is disqualified from holding public office again under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. The divided 4-3 court ruled against Trump on all of the key legal issues it weighed, including that Section 3 covers the presidency and those who swore the presidential oath, that the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol constituted an insurrection, and that Trump "engaged in" insurrection.
The state Supreme Court's majority ordered the secretary of state to exclude his name from the presidential primary ballot, but put its decision on hold until Jan. 4 to allow Trump to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Colorado Republican Party, which intervened in the case, asked the nation's highest court to review the Colorado Supreme Court's decision on Wednesday.
The appeal by the Colorado GOP means Trump will be included as a candidate on Colorado's primary ballot unless the U.S. Supreme Court declines to hear the case or upholds the state Supreme Court's ruling, the secretary of state said.
The Colorado Supreme Court, composed of seven justices appointed by Democratic governors, is the first to remove Trump from a presidential primary ballot, and its decision marks the first time a presidential candidate has been deemed ineligible for the White House under Section 3.
Maine
Maine law requires challenges to a primary nomination to be filed with the secretary of state, who then holds a public hearing where the challengers must make their case as to why the primary nomination petition should be invalidated.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows received three challenges to Trump's primary nomination petition, two of which argued that the former president doesn't meet the qualifications for the presidency and is ineligible to hold public office under Section 3.
Bellows, a Democrat, held a hearing on the bids to remove Trump's name from the primary ballot on Dec. 15 and issued her decision Thursday, finding that the former president is disqualified from holding office again because of his actions surrounding the Jan. 6 riot.
"I am mindful that no secretary of state has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment," Bellows wrote in her 34-page decision. "I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection."
Trump can appeal in state court, and Bellows suspended the effect of her decision until the court rules on any appeal. Maine's highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court, can also be asked to review any ruling by a lower court. The case may ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Michigan
The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to review a state Court of Appeals decision that allowed Trump to remain on the state's presidential primary ballot.
The state's high court said in a brief, unsigned order that it is "not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this court." There was no vote count included in the order.
The challenge to Trump's candidacy in Michigan was brought by four voters on behalf of the liberal advocacy group Free Speech for People, which is behind similar cases in Oregon and Minnesota. The group of voters argued that Trump cannot hold office because of his conduct surrounding the Jan. 6 attack.
A Michigan Court of Claims judge dismissed the case on technical grounds, finding in part that it involved a political question that cannot be decided by the courts and that the political parties determine their presidential candidates for the primary. A three-judge Court of Appeals panel upheld the lower court's ruling and said the political parties and individual candidates determine who to list on the primary ballot. All three judges on the panel were appointed by former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder.
The appeals court's decision, though, does not block voters from renewing a challenge to Trump's candidacy for the general election ballot if he wins the Republican presidential nomination.
Minnesota
Minnesota's Supreme Court tossed out a case brought by eight voters in the state who sought to have Trump's name kept off the primary ballot. The high court said that while the Minnesota secretary of state and other election officials administer the election, the primary is an "internal party election to serve internal party purposes."
"There is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office," the Minnesota Supreme Court found.
The court, though, said the voters could renew their challenge for the general election.
New Hampshire
Trump's name will be listed on the primary ballot in New Hampshire after the state's top election official, Secretary of State David Scanlan, said in September that there is no legal basis for excluding the former president.
"There is no mention in New Hampshire state statute that a candidate in a new presidential primary can be disqualified using the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution referencing insurrection or rebellion," Scanlan said during a news conference. "Similarly, there is nothing in the 14th Amendment that suggests that exercising the provisions of that amendment should take place during the delegate selection process held by the different states."
Scanlan, a Republican, said that the language of state election law "is not discretionary," and any candidate who pays a $1,000 filing fee and signs a declaration of candidacy swearing that they meet age, citizenship and residency requirements will have their name listed on ballots.
The secretary of state had asked New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella in August to advise on the meaning of Section 3 and its potential applicability to the 2024 election cycle. Formella, a Republican, issued his guidance in mid-September, saying state law doesn't give the secretary of state discretion to withhold a primary candidate's name from the ballot "on the grounds that the candidate may be disqualified under Section 3 when a candidate has not been convicted or otherwise adjudicated guilty of conduct that would disqualify" them under the provision.
Oregon
Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade said in late November that she would not remove Trump from the ballot for the Republican presidential primary because state law does not give her the authority to determine a candidate's qualifications.
The announcement from Griffin-Valade, who was appointed by Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek earlier this year, came after Oregon's solicitor general, Benjamin Gutman, determined that Oregon law doesn't charge the secretary of state with determining whether a primary candidate will be qualified to serve as president if elected. Section 3, Gutman wrote in a letter to Griffin-Valade, "does not prevent placing a candidate on the presidential primary ballot."
Gutman, who serves in a Democratic-led administration, stressed that his guidance is limited to the secretary's responsibility as to the primary ballot and said the question of Trump's eligibility may arise again with respect to the general election if he receives the Republican presidential nomination.
Griffin-Valade, too, noted that her decision not to exclude Trump from the ballot applies only to the primary and not the November general election.
Still, five voters in Oregon asked the state Supreme Court earlier this month to order Griffin-Valade to disqualify Trump from both the primary and general election ballots, arguing he is constitutionally ineligible for the presidency.
The other states
Cases in 14 states arguing Trump is not eligible remain pending. Those states are: Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming, according to Lawfare's database.
In Arizona, a lower court decision dismissing the case has been appealed.
Trump's eligibility for the ballot is being challenged under the 14th Amendment. Here are the notable cases. - CBS News
:) Trump’s lawyer confirms his concern about Supreme Court ballot ruling
Former President Trump’s attorney Alina Habba on Wednesday said the former president is concerned the U.S. Supreme Court justices may “shy away from being pro-Trump,” and rule against him in regard to the recent decisions in Colorado and Maine that kicked him off the states’ 2024 primary ballots.
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Donald Trump appealed to the US supreme court on Wednesday to undo the Colorado ruling that removed him from the ballot in the western state under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, for inciting an insurrection.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/docum...nline_manual_2
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Trump, who had indicated that he was going to appeal the ruling, is also expected to appeal the Colorado ruling that barred him from the ballot in the state.
DocumentCloud
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Who would have guessed?
- Colorado secretary of state receives death threats: ‘I will not be intimidated’
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) said she received death threats in the wake of the lawsuit that was filed in her state that eventually led to former President Trump being kicked off the ballot in her state.
“Within three weeks of the lawsuit being filed, I received 64 death threats. I stopped counting after that,” Griswold said on X Saturday, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “I will not be intimidated. Democracy and peace will triumph over tyranny and violence.”
Griswold also linked to a HuffPost article from last week in which she discussed her fears about violence on behalf of the former president. In the article, she also noted that it wasn’t her that filed the lawsuit, but a watchdog organization named Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
Griswold recently praised her Maine counterpart, Shenna Bellows (D), for her decision to kick Trump off of the ballot in the Pine Tree State Thursday under the 14th Amendment.
“I do think Secretary Bellows is brave and courageous,” Griswold said in an interview on MSNBC about the Maine secretary of state (D). “She is the first individual, by herself, having to make this decision.”
On Thursday, Bellows said she had concluded that the former president “over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power.”
Bellows said on Friday that she has received threats in the wake of her decision to remove Trump from the ballot.
“I was prepared for the possibility of threats, and I really appreciate law enforcement and the people around me who have been incredibly supportive of my safety and security,” Bellows said during an appearance on CNN. “My safety and security is important, so is the safety and security of everyone who works with me and we have received threatening communications.”
“Those are unacceptable,” Bellows continued.
Jena Griswold - Within three weeks of the lawsuit being filed, I received 64 death threats. I stopped counting after that.
I will not be intimidated. Democracy and peace will triumph over tyranny and violence. https://twitter.com/JenaGriswold/sta...869291962522?s
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Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows on Saturday said her home was swatted amid escalating threats over her removal of Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 primary ballot.
In a statement posted to Facebook, Bellows said she was the target of a swatting — when a false emergency call results in a strong police response to a residence — Friday night, after her home address was posted online.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by misskit
Wisconsin election officials have declined to review a complaint attempting to remove former President Trump from the state’s primary ballot, citing the 14th Amendment.
Madison, Wis., brewery owner Kirk Bangstad filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday, claiming Trump should be removed from the ballot due to his actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
The commission said the complaint was thrown out for procedural reasons, and it lists members of the commission itself as respondents.
“The complaint was disposed of without consideration by the Commission,” spokesperson Riley Vetterkind said in a Thursday statement to the media. “It is the position of the Commission that a complaint against the Commission, against Commissioners in their official capacities, or against Commission staff, warrants an ethical recusal by the body.”
Voters in Illinois have filed a petition to remove Donald Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot, echoing efforts in other states to bar the former president from returning to the White House over his role in the 6 January capitol attack.
The petition, similar to those filed in more than a dozen other states, relies on the 14th amendment to the constitution.
Known as the “insurrection clause”, the amendment prohibits anyone from holding office who previously took an oath to defend the constitution and then later “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the country or gave “aid or comfort” to its enemies.
The 87-page document, signed by five people from around the state, lays out a case that Trump fanned the flames of hardcore supporters who attacked the Capitol on the day Congress certified the election results for his rival, Joe Biden.
Officials in Colorado and Maine have already banned Trump’s name from primary election ballots.
The Illinois state board of elections has yet to set the petition for hearing, spokesperson Matt Dietrich told the Associated Press. The board is set to hear 32 other objections to the proposed ballot later in January.
Also on Thursday, a group of voters in Massachusetts launched an effortto remove Trump from that state’s primary ballot.
https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-c....-v.-trump.pdf
https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-c...-objection.pdf
Stepping into a political minefield, the Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether states have the power to knock Donald Trump off the ballot in the looming presidential contest for stoking the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and trying to upend the 2020 election results.
In a brief order Friday, the high court indicated it will review a Colorado Supreme Court decision that found Trump ineligible to run under a provision of the 14th Amendment that strips insurrectionists of the ability to hold U.S. government posts.
The justices announced an accelerated timetable to hear the extraordinary election dispute, setting oral arguments for Feb. 8.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/...24zr2_886b.pdf
- Trump urges Supreme Court to reject efforts to keep him off ballot, warning of "chaos" in new filing
Former President Donald Trump on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to reverse a decision from Colorado's top court that found he is disqualified from holding the presidency under a Civil War-era provision of the Constitution, calling on the justices to "put a swift and decisive end" to efforts to keep him off the ballot.
In an opening brief to the Supreme Court, Trump's lawyers said the challenges to his candidacy threaten to disenfranchise millions of Americans and "promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado's lead and exclude the likely Republican presidential nominee from their ballots."
Trump's brief presents an early look at the arguments his lawyers plan to put forward when they appear before the justices to argue the case on Feb. 8. They are asking the nation's highest court to decide whether the Colorado Supreme Court was wrong to order Trump be kept off the state's 2024 presidential primary ballot.
"The Court should reverse the Colorado decision because President Trump is not even subject to section 3, as the president is not an 'officer of the United States' under the Constitution. And even if President Trump were subject to section 3 he did not 'engage in' anything that qualifies as 'insurrection,'" his lawyers wrote. "The court should reverse on these grounds and end these unconstitutional disqualification efforts once and for all."
Trump tells SCOTUS kicking him off ballot would ‘unleash chaos’ - POLITICO
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketP...e%20Merits.pdf
"we" :rofl:Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows is asking the state’s highest court to weigh in on her decision to remove Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot while a related decision by Colorado judges remains pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“I know both the constitutional and state authority questions are of grave concern to many,” Bellows said in a statement Friday. “This appeal ensures that Maine’s highest court has the opportunity to weigh in now, before ballots are counted, promoting trust in our free, safe and secure elections.”
Bellows ruled last month that Trump should not appear on the state’s 2024 ballot, concluding that his incitement of the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol put him afoul of the 14th Amendment’s bar on insurrectionists holding public office. Trump challenged her ruling in Maine superior court, and a judge put Bellows’ ruling on hold in anticipation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on the matter.
But Bellows’ appeal gives the opportunity for one more state high court to weigh in before the Supreme Court’s Feb. 8 arguments on the Colorado decision.
“Like many Americans, I welcome a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in the Colorado case that provides guidance as to the important Fourteenth Amendment questions in this case,” Bellows said.
Neither the Colorado nor Maine decisions have affected Trump’s place on those states’ 2024 primary ballots. Both decisions were paused pending the outcome of rulings from higher courts.
Trump filed his opening brief at the U.S. Supreme Court Thursday, arguing that permitting individual states to remove him from the ballot would “unleash chaos.”
"we"Quote:
Originally Posted by harrybarracuda
Maine's Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal from Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who requested last week for the high court to consider her earlier decision to bar former President Donald Trump from the state's primary ballot under the 14th Amendment.
Maine's top trial court had just days earlier deferred ruling on her landmark decision, which had been appealed by Trump's team, until after the U.S. Supreme Court settled a similar 14th Amendment case from Colorado, ordering that the challenge would go back down to Bellows for reconsideration after the nation's highest court had their say.
Bellows filed an appeal of that decision to the Maine Supreme Court so that it might speed up the judicial process ahead of the state's primary date, but the Court on Wednesday declined to hear the challenge because the Maine Superior Court's decision was not a "final" judgment, just a deferment.
"Because the appeal is not from a final judgment, we dismiss the appeal as interlocutory and not justiciable," the seven-justice Court wrote in a 19-page decision.
“Requiring a final judgment in this situation serves the interests of justice; enhances administrative and judicial efficiency; averts our issuance of what would likely be, at least in some part, an advisory opinion; and it allows for true and effective decision-making when the matter is ripe," the decision reads.
Trump's campaign billed the dismissal as a victory on Wednesday night, calling it a "disenfranchisement effort" that was "soundly rejected by Maine's Supreme Court.
https://www.courts.maine.gov/news/tr...4_decision.pdf
Voters challenging former President Donald Trump’s eligibility to return to the White House told the Supreme Court Friday that Trump is attempting to sidestep the evidence that he stoked the attack on the Capitol three years ago.
“The thrust of Trump’s position is less legal than it is political. He not-so-subtly threatens ‘bedlam’ if he is not on the ballot,” attorneys for the Colorado voters wrote in a 70-page filing submitted Friday. “But we already saw the ‘bedlam’ Trump unleashed when he was on the ballot and lost.”
The 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause, the lawyers continued, “is designed precisely to avoid giving oath-breaking insurrectionists like Trump the power to unleash such mayhem again.”
The court will hear oral arguments in the case on Feb. 8.
Trump’s detractors say his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack disqualifies him from appearing on the ballot based on the Civil War-era constitutional amendment, which bars people from holding federal office if they “engaged in insurrection” after taking an oath to support the Constitution.
In his own Supreme Court brief last week, the lawyers for the voters note, Trump didn’t dispute that the Jan. 6 attack itself was an insurrection. And they say he made only a “perfunctory” attempt to disclaim his role in it.
Rather, they contend, Trump spent the bulk of his argument suggesting that the 14th Amendment doesn’t apply to presidential candidates and that his exhortations to the Jan. 6 crowd he summoned to Washington were protected free speech.
“For obvious reasons, the First Amendment does not protect mob bosses who deliberately incite violence through thinly veiled language they know their audience will understand,” the lawyers for the voters say. “So too here.”
The case is an appeal of a decision from the Colorado Supreme Court, which ruled in December that Trump is ineligible to run. The justices agreed to consider Trump’s appeal on an expedited basis.
The Colorado decision was the first in the nation finding that Trump was ineligible, and Maine’s secretary of state made a similar decision shortly after. But Trump is likely to appear on at least the primary ballot in both states. Earlier this month, a Maine court put the secretary’s ruling on hold pending a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, while the Colorado court effectively paused its decision immediately to let the nation’s top court weigh in.
In the filing Friday, attorneys representing the voters — including from the liberal government watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has spearheaded similar challenges across the country — argued that Trump has “no serious defense” against the allegation that he “engaged in insurrection.”
“Trump summoned an angry and armed crowd that he had been inflaming for months and that he knew was prepared for violence,” the briefing read.
It also seeks to rebut several arguments that Trump raised in his own briefing, including that the insurrection clause doesn’t apply to the presidency and that only Congress can enforce it.
The case has drawn a deluge of “friend of the court” briefs on behalf of Trump. Briefs supporting the former president’s position — and those siding with neither party — were due earlier this month, and groups including nearly 200 Republican members of Congress, over two dozen GOP-led states and the Republican National Committee filed supporting him.
The briefing from the challengers was due next Wednesday, but in an unusual move, the Colorado voters submitted it five days before the deadline. Briefs from outside parties who support the challengers are also due next Wednesday.
Many legal experts — along with both Trump and the challengers — have urged the Supreme Court to swiftly issue a final decision on Trump’s eligibility, rather than dodging the central question and prolonging the political uncertainty.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketP...ts%20Brief.pdf
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Colorado's Secretary of State Jena Griswold petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday for permission to get a slice of time to present her own unique oral arguments at next month's hearing in the historic case that will determine Donald Trump's ballot eligibility in the 2024 presidential election.
Griswold's 8-page filing proposes a divided oral argument that gives her 15 minutes to present Colorado-specific points tied to the legal battle surrounding the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and whether it's provisions should kick in and remove the former president because of the role he played sparking the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
The Colorado elected Democratic official wants time that would go on top of the 60 minutes that's set to be divided at the Feb. 8 session for the attorney for the electors who filed the initial case to block the former president, and Trump's lawyer.
"Given the implications this case has on Colorado’s presidential election process, as well as the constitutional protections Colorado’s citizens enjoy, the Secretary provides an important perspective on Colorado’s election laws," Griswold wrote.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled in December that Trump could be barred from the presidential primary ballot because he "engaged" in insurrection, making him ineligible to run under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Trump appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Griswold noted that Colorado's election law and administration are critical to Trump's challenges against that Colorado Supreme Court ruling, including if a state court can rule on a constitutional issue, or if the state court ruling violated a law regarding electors.
The electors who filed the initial suit are less interested in protecting the integrity of Colorado's election laws and authority, and more focused on keeping Trump off the ballot, Griswold wrote.
Griswold was named along with Trump on the initial case as a defendant since Trump was on the Colorado ballot as part of the state election process.
In her application to the Supreme Court on Friday, Griswold wrote that Trump and the Colorado Republican State Central Committee didn't take a position on her request for the time. But she noted the Colorado voters who brought the initial case opposed the request.
More than two dozen amicus briefs have already been filed onto the public docket in the 14th Amendment case ahead of the Feb. 8 oral arguments, and both Trump and the Colorado voters have submitted to the justices their merit briefs.
Arguments supporting the Colorado voters from outside groups are due by Wednesday, while Trump also has one final deadline of Feb. 5 to submit any of his own final closing arguments in writing before the hearing three days later in front of Chief Justice John Roberts and his eight colleagues.
DocumentCloud
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Twenty-five historians of the civil war and Reconstruction filed a US supreme court brief in support of the attempt by Colorado to remove Donald Trump from the ballot under the 14th amendment, which bars insurrectionists from running for office.
“For historians,” the group wrote, “contemporary evidence from the decision-makers who sponsored, backed, and voted for the 14th amendment [ratified in 1868] is most probative. Analysis of this evidence demonstrates that decision-makers crafted section three to cover the president and to create an enduring check on insurrection, requiring no additional action from Congress.”
A group of voters trying to remove former President Donald Trump's name from Illinois' primary ballot over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol has taken its fight to court after the state's election board unanimously rejected its effort.
The expected legal challenge was filed in Cook Court's circuit court Tuesday, hours after the bipartisan Illinois State Board of Elections voted to keep the Republican on the March 19 ballot. The five voters argue Trump is ineligible to hold office because he encouraged and did little to stop the Capitol riot.
Dozens of similar cases have been filed in other states seeking to keep Trump from the presidency under a provision of the 14th Amendment that bars some people who “engaged in insurrection” from holding public office. The Colorado case is the only one that succeeded in court. Most other courts and election officials have ducked the issue on similar grounds to Illinois, concluding they don’t have jurisdiction to rule on the obscure constitutional issue.
The issue will likely be decided at a higher court, with the U.S. Supreme Court scheduled next week to hear arguments in Trump’s appeal of the Colorado ruling declaring him ineligible for the presidency in that state.
The Illinois voters, along with national voting advocacy group Free Speech for People, argued in their court petition for judicial review that the elections board has the authority to determine Trump's eligibility. Trump attorney Adam Merrill told reporters Tuesday he was pleased with the election board's decision and prepared to respond to any court action.
U.S. Supreme Court allows time for Colorado secretary of state during Trump ballot case arguments
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s behalf next week as it considers an appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision finding former President Donald Trump ineligible for the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot.
In an order Friday, the high court granted Griswold’s request for a 10-minute sliver of time for an attorney representing her office to speak during oral arguments. The justices also will hear from lawyers for Trump and the Colorado voters who challenged his eligibility during Thursday’s hearing in Washington, D.C.
The state’s highest court found in a 4-3 ruling in December that Trump was disqualified from becoming president again because his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot violated the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But a stay is in place because of the appeal, allowing the Republican frontrunner to appear on Colorado’s March 5 presidential primary ballot.
In Griswold’s request, filed late last week, she asked the court for time “to allow her to address the unique state-law and state-level election-administration issues presented in this matter.” She requested 15 minutes but was granted 10 in Friday’s order. Jack Todd, a spokesman for the Secretary of State’s Office, said Solicitor General Shannon Stevenson would represent Griswold during arguments.
The Supreme Court’s order says argument time will be limited to 80 minutes. Of the remainder, 40 minutes will go to Trump’s team and 30 minutes will go to the lawyer for the Colorado voters who filed the ballot challenge.
The challenge by the unaffiliated and Republican voters was backed by the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Griswold on Wednesday filed a separate brief in the case that urged the justices to uphold the Colorado court’s ruling. She was a named defendant in the lawsuit challenging Trump’s eligibility because of her state office, and at earlier stages of the case she did not weigh in on whether Trump should be taken off the ballot.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that the Colorado decision, if not reversed, “would unconstitutionally disenfranchise millions of voters in Colorado and likely be used as a template to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters nationwide.”
New York is the latest state challenging Donald Trump’s primary ballot eligibility under the so-called “insurrection clause” of the U.S. Constitution, according to a complaint filed late Tuesday night in New York Supreme Court.
The objection comes from New York State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who filed the claim alongside New York City Council members Shekar Krishnan and Gertrude Fitelson. The three lawmakers assert that Trump’s role in the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol bars him from appearing on the upcoming 2024 primary ballot.
“Donald J. Trump engaged in that insurrection through his personal actions before and on Jan. 6, 2021,” the lawmakers wrote, “including without limitation summoning a crowd to come to Washington, D.C., on January 6th and telling the crowd, which he knew was armed, to march to the Capitol and ‘fight like hell’ under ‘very different rules.’”
It’s a strikingly similar complaint to those seen in Colorado, Michigan and other states over the past several months, and one that comes just hours after the New York Board of Elections said that Trump would appear on April’s Republican primary ballot.
Prior to the board of election’s decision to put Trump on the ballot, Hoylman-Sigal had already warned the board of elections of potential legal action.
“The board of elections can still uphold the United States Constitution by sustaining our objection and disqualifying Donald Trump from the presidential ballot,” Hoylman-Sigal said in a statement. “Should the board of elections fail to do their duty and rule Trump ineligible, I will see them in court.”
Krishnan called the board’s decision a “misreading of the U.S. Constitution."
“The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution plainly disqualifies anyone who has ‘engaged in insurrection’ from holding office, including former President Trump," Krishnan said. “Donald Trump incited, engaged in, and aided the violent, deadly insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021. The Constitution he swore to uphold renders him ineligible for public office.”
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When the Supreme Court holds arguments Thursday on Donald Trump’s eligibility to be president, the justices won’t be hearing from members of Washington, D.C.’s elite circle of Supreme Court specialists.
Instead, the three lawyers presenting the case are all from outside the beltway and have little experience at the high court’s lectern.
Arguing for Trump will be Jonathan Mitchell, a conservative lawyer who is the only one of the three who has ever argued before the Supreme Court. He’s done so five times — and during his most recent case, his legal position so exasperated Justice Elena Kagan that she obliquely and sarcastically referred to him as a genius.
Arguing against Trump will be Jason Murray, a Denver lawyer whose firm describes its mission as holding powerful people accountable. Late last year, Murray successfully persuaded Colorado’s top court to declare Trump ineligible to run in that state due to the Constitution’s insurrection clause — a bombshell decision that paved the way for the Supreme Court to take up the question.
There also will be a third lawyer taking a brief turn at the lectern on Thursday: Shannon Stevenson, the solicitor general of Colorado. Stevenson will speak on behalf of the Colorado secretary of state, who is responsible for enforcing the state’s election laws.
Here’s what to know about the three advocates who will present what may be the most important election case since Bush v. Gore.
Jonathan Mitchell
Mitchell, 47, is a prominent conservative lawyer and legal theorist who has worked as the Texas solicitor general, as a law professor and as a private litigator running his own law firm.
Jason Murray
Murray, 38, will argue on behalf of Colorado voters who are challenging Trump’s eligibility. He’ll be making his Supreme Court debut in one of the most closely watched cases the court has heard in years.
Shannon Stevenson
Though Mitchell and Murray will be the principal lawyers arguing on Thursday, the court also granted some argument time to Stevenson, who will argue on behalf of Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold.
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‘When duty calls, you do it’: The 91-year-old lawmaker who could have Trump disqualified
Donald Trump’s biggest obstacle to win the presidency right now isn’t Nikki Haley or Joe Biden. It’s a little-known 91-year-old former Republican legislator from Colorado.
Norma Anderson — the Anderson in the Trump v. Anderson case that the Supreme Court will hear on Thursday — is taking on Trump over whether he is eligible to serve as president after his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.
Anderson, a lifelong Republican who rose through the state party to become one of the top GOP lawmakers in Colorado, said she immediately agreed to participate when recruited by an attorney working with the liberal government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
“When asked, and when duty calls, you do it,” she told POLITICO. “My reason for doing it is saving democracy. Because Donald Trump will destroy our democracy.”
The case rests on an interpretation of a clause in the 14th Amendment that says those who “engaged in” an insurrection against the United States after taking an oath to “support” the Constitution are ineligible to hold future office.
Anderson was a Republican long before Trump. She recently reminisced to the Colorado Sun about being “on the Dewey side” in childhood games where the teams were FDR vs. Dewey. She served as a state lawmaker for nearly two decades, eventually rising to be majority leader in both chambers before leaving office in 2006.
But like others, Anderson has grappled with Trump’s remaking of the Republican Party.
She said she briefly left the GOP because of him. But she decided to rejoin the party, calling herself an “old-fashioned Republican” who believes in democracy and pro-business policies.
“They’re not going to chase me out,” she said. “I will be a Republican when I die. I was born one, I will die one.”