The Colorado Republican Party has threatened to nix the state’s planned primary election if Donald Trump’s name isn’t allowed on the ballot, replacing it with a caucus instead after a bombshell state supreme court ruling.
The state GOP issued the threat on X after Trump competitor Vivek Ramaswamy threatened to try to take his own name off the ballot in protest, after the court ruled Trump was barred by the 14th Amendment’s clause on people who have committed ‘insurrection’ against the U.S.
‘I pledge to withdraw from the Colorado GOP primary ballot until Trump is also allowed to be on the ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley do the same immediately — or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country,’ Ramaswamy said in a video from his campaign bus, where he is trailing far behind Trump in early primary states.
That drew a response from the state Republican party that contained the threat.
‘You won’t have to because we will withdraw from the Primary as a Party and convert to a pure caucus system if this is allowed to stand,’ the party tweeted.
The Colorado state Republican Party says it will cancel the planned primary election and hold a caucus instead of Donald Trump is not allowed on the ballot
State GOP chair Dave Williams told NBC News, ‘We’re at the mercy of the U.S. Supreme Court’ and that the state was ‘figuring it out as we go.’
‘But we’ll make our preparations to convert to a caucus while this is all playing out. And if it [a Supreme Court ruling] does not go in our favor, we’ll plan to do a caucus. But if it does go in our favor, then nothing will change.’
It is not clear that the state party would be able to pull off such a move. Coloradans voted to switch to a primary in 2019. It would require sign-off from the national GOP, where Trump has outsized influence, but would require state support and might need to overcome a court challenge.
The office of Colorado’s Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who is ordered in the ruling not to put Trump’s name on the ballot, would not likely go along with the new scheme.
‘Colorado law does not allow a presidential primary election to be cancelled at the request of a political party,’ said Jack Todd, a Griswold spokesman.
‘If the Colorado Republican Party attempts to withdraw from the presidential primary or ignore the results of the election, this would likely be a matter for the courts,’ he said.
The state GOP said it would ‘withdraw’ from the primary if necessary, although it is not clear it could do so
The party responded to a pledge by candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to boycott the primary in the state over the court’s action disqualifying Trump
‘This is not democracy at all. This is something that I think the American public will find completely repugnant, and I think the Supreme Court is going to bat it down,’ said Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.)
President Joe Biden said former President Donald Trump ‘supported an insurrection’
Former President Donald Trump attends a rally on the Ellipse on January 6, 2021, ahead of the Capitol attack. His role in the ‘insurrection’ and attempt to overturn the 2020 election make him ineligible to serve, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday
Supporters of former President Donald Trump broke into the Capitol Building on January 6, interrupting the joint session of Congress that cemented President Joe Biden’s 2020 election win
The jostling in Colorado comes amid fury from Trump and his Republican allies about the court decision, which threatens to toss the leading Republican off the ballot in other states.
‘What it does is it inflames [and tells] America that there is a complete disregard for the opinions and the rights of those that don’t agree with the left,’ Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee told DailyMail.com.
‘And they were willing to disenfranchise, using a judicial mechanism to disenfranchise half of the voters in Colorado. Yet at the same time, the Democrats are constantly talking about threats to democracy. This is an unheard of threat to democracy, that they’re willing to exercise and it shows that they’re desperate,’ he fumed.
‘This is not democracy at all. This is something that I think the American public will find completely repugnant, and I think the Supreme Court is going to bat it down,’ he said.
‘A majority of the court holds that Trump is disqualified from holding the office of president under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment,’ the court wrote in its bombshell 4-3 ruling Tuesday.
The court also found that Trump’s January 6 speech where he told a crowd to ‘fight like hell’ before a mob stormed the Capitol was not protected under the First Amendment.
Legal experts including former White House lawyer Ty Cobb have predicted the high court will swat down the decision. ‘I think this case will be handled quickly, I think it could be 9-0 at the Supreme Court for Trump,’ predicted Cobb on CNN.
And former Trump AG Bill Barr, now a Trump critic, said Tuesday the decision would wreak havoc on the election system.
‘The core problem here is the denial of due process,’ he said. ‘It was a five day hearing … The process here was a procedural Frankenstein.’
He also said of the potential political impact that Trump ‘feeds on grievance, just like a fire feeds on oxygen. This is going to end up as a grievance that helps him.’
But President Joe Biden told reporters Wednesday there was ‘no question’ Trump engaged in insurrection, while stopping short of getting into the court’s reasoning.
Former House impeachment manager Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who taught constitutional law, said the ruling was grounded in the text of the U.S. Constitution.
‘If the [Supreme] Court takes remotely seriously its profession of faith in original intent and textualism, then it will have to affirm’ the ruling, said Raskin. ‘The original meaning … is precisely to forbid people who have betrayed their oath by trying to overthrow the constitutional order.’
The conservative 6-3 weighed U.S. Supreme Court, which featured three Trump appointees, can turn to the three Colorado dissenters for arguments if they want to intervene.
‘I have been involved in the justice system for thirty-three years now, and what took place here doesn’t resemble anything I’ve seen in a courtroom,’ said dissenting Judge Carlos Samour. The appointee of Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper warned of ‘chaos’ in the ruling’s aftermath.
He said Trump had not been charged under a statute dealing with insurrection, and said he hadn’t been through a jury trial or other mechanisms to preserve his rights.
‘In my view, what transpired in this litigation fell woefully short of what due process demands,’ he wrote in his dissent to the 4-3 decision.