Conservative Group Asks Supreme Court to Put Trump Back on Colorado Ballot

A nonprofit headed by a former Donald Trump lawyer petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove the former president from the state’s Republican 2024 primary ballot.

The petition was sent on behalf of the Colorado GOP on Wednesday by the American Center for Law and Justice. Jay Sekulow, the chief counsel of the conservative group since 1991, notably defended Trump during his first impeachment trial in 2019.

“Unless the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision is overturned, any voter will have the power to sue to disqualify any political candidate, in Colorado or in any other jurisdiction that follows its lead,” the group wrote. “This will not only distort the 2024 presidential election but will also mire courts henceforth in political controversies over nebulous accusations of insurrection.”

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Last week, the state’s highest court decided 4-3 that Trump is “disqualified from holding the office of the president” under the 14th Amendment because he participated in an “insurrection” by provoking the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The ACLJ made three arguments to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that Trump is “not an officer of the United States covered within the disqualification provision of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment,” the constitutional amendment is not “a self-executing authority for state courts and litigants to use as a sword against presidential candidates,” and Colorado’s ruling violates the Republican Party’s First Amendment right to choose its own candidates.

The ACLJ has represented state Republican parties in multiple cases that aim to remove Trump from the ballot, including wins in Michigan, Minnesota, and West Virginia.

In a Wednesday afternoon livestream announcing the Colorado appeal on Rumble, Sekulow said, “If the [U.S.] Supreme Court doesn’t grab this case quickly, it’s havoc. Total constitutional havoc.”