(BrightPress.org) – Trump’s legal team filed a formal objection and appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, January 3rd, after the Colorado Supreme Court issued a controversial decision barring him from the state’s GOP primary due to claims he participated in an insurrection on January 6th, 2021. The Fourteenth Amendment bars political actors from eligibility from office who engaged in open rebellion and was intended to admonish participants who sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War.
The 43-page filing argues that our system is democratic and that forced removals from the ballot under spurious and contested allegations are unconstitutional. They asked the SCOTUS to take up the question, reverse the Colorado decision, and restore Trump’s name to the ballot.
The Colorado decision was the first successful attempt at challenging Trump’s legitimacy appearing on the 2024 ballot. Other courts have rejected the rationale deployed in Colorado at both the state and local levels.
The Justices stayed the implementation of their ruling until January 4th or such time the SCOTUS could weigh in.
Trump’s lawyers argued that his prominence as the frontrunner for the GOP nomination makes the question of whether or not he can appear on the ballot incredibly important. His removal would disenfranchise millions of voters, and it has already been used by the Secretary of State for Maine Shenna Bellows to disqualify Trump from their state’s GOP primary. If allowed to stand, more states will likely remove Trump from the ballot, effectively ending his campaign.
Bellows similarly deferred her unilateral decision until SCOTUS could rule. Trump’s team is also challenging the legality of her declaration in an appeal to Maine’s state Supreme Court. Bellows similarly repeated the claim that Trump participated in an insurrection, and she claimed that the novel circumstances require a novel approach.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called the move attempted election theft, as well as disenfranchisement of the voting public. Trump’s lawyers sent Bellow’s office a letter requesting she disqualify herself in the matter, citing prior statements she made where she claimed Trump was an insurrectionist.
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