Thread: Colorado Supreme Court kicks Trump off the state's 2024 primary ballot

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.

Originally Posted by misskit

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.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

That's why people wants someone else to run.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

we need

Surely ​we need a new Trump thread for every state that blocks him?

I reckon they can all go on one.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

Young female voters are the latest to abandon him in droves.

Yes, because they want a convicted rapist, who took their freedom of choice away from them.

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

we need

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.

Originally Posted by misskit

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.

A 'bit of tourism".

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

A 'bit of tourism".

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

we need

we

Originally Posted by misskit

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Troy

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.

Yeah but there are so many of them and he can't be in two places at once.

Originally Posted by S Landreth

Could this be decided state-by-state?

Almost certainly not.

No "almost" to it. Certainly not....full stop.

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

• Illinois voters file petition to remove Trump from Republican primary ballot

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

• Supreme Court will take up Trump’s eligibility to run for president

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

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

we need

"we"

• Maine’s top election official seeks state Supreme Court review of decision to remove Trump from ballot

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.”

Originally Posted by harrybarracuda

we need

"we"

• Maine's top court refuses to rule before Supreme Court on whether Trump will stay off ballot

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

• Trump is an ‘oath-breaking insurrectionist’ who shouldn’t be allowed to run, challengers argue

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 Secretary of State Asks Supreme Court for 15 Minutes to Present 'Important Perspective' on Trump's Ballot Eligibility

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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• US historians sign brief to support Colorado’s removal of Trump from ballot

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.”

• Illinois voters trying to boot Trump from ballot file legal challenge after election board defeat

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.

• Supreme Court allots Jena Griswold's attorney time in Trump ballot case

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 lawmakers challenge Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility for ‘insurrection’
  

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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• Meet the lawyers arguing the Trump ballot case at the Supreme Court

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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• Who is Norma Anderson? The 91-year-old behind the 14th Amendment challenge to Trump

‘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.”