Attorneys for Donald Trump have appealed a decision by Maine’s secretary of state after it disqualified him from the primary ballot, citing the 14th Amendment’s ban on anyone who engaged in insurrection from holding office.
The appeal was made to the Kennebec Superior Court following the decision by Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, just five days ago.
A similar conclusion was made on December 19 by Colorado‘s Supreme Court. Trump is expected to appeal that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Trump’s team on Thursday night said they will appeal the decision, as they will in Colorado. On Thursday, the Republican Party in Colorado appealed against their Supreme Court’s decision, meaning that he is back on the ballot until an expected U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
Bellows, a Democrat, concluded that Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024, incited an insurrection when he spread false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election and then urged his supporters to march on the Capitol to stop lawmakers from certifying the vote.
Bellows suspended her decision until the state Supreme Court ruled on the matter.
Shenna Bellows, Maine’s secretary of state, on Thursday ruled that Donald Trump should be disqualified from their March primary ballot
The decision came after a group of former Maine lawmakers said that Trump should be disqualified based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment – a provision of the U.S. Constitution that bars people from holding office if they engaged in ‘insurrection or rebellion’ after previously swearing an oath to the United States.
The ruling, which can be appealed to a state court, applies only to the March primary election, but it could affect Trump’s status for the November general election.
It likely will add to pressure on the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve questions about Trump’s eligibility nationwide under the constitutional provision.
Trump has been indicted in both a federal case and in Georgia for his role in trying to overturn the 2020 election but he has not been charged with insurrection related to the Jan. 6 attack.
He leads opinion polls by a large margin in the race for the Republican nomination in 2024.
The Colorado Republican Party on Wednesday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to look at the lower court’s ruling that disqualified Trump from running on the presidential ballot in the state due to his role in the January 6 Capitol riot.
Jena Griswold, Colorado’s secretary of state, announced on Thursday that Trump will for the time being remain on the ballot, which goes to print on January 5 – unless the Supreme Court affirms the lower court’s ruling or otherwise declines to take on the appeal.
The 4-3 ruling on December 19 said Trump would not appear on the state’s primary ballot, according to a 155-year-old 14th Amendment clause that bans those from office who ‘engaged in insurrection.’
Although Colorado’s 10 Electoral College votes are unlikely to go to the Republican candidate anyway in the general election – and the state isn’t highly important in the GOP primary – the ruling could set precedent for a slew of other states looking to remove Trump from the ballot.
Donald Trump will remain on the presidential primary ballot in Colorado for the time being as the GOP appeal puts Colorado’s ruling on pause that disqualified the former president from running due to engagement in ‘insurrection’
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (pictured on July 8, 2022) announced that Trump will remain on the ballot, but voiced her backing of her state’s Supreme Court ruling, saying: ‘The Colorado Supreme Court got it right… I urge the U.S. Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election’
The Michigan Supreme Court, however, already ruled after Colorado to leave the ex-president on the ballot for the state’s primary – and the midwest swing state is much more important to clinching the White House in 2024.
Louisiana became the latest state to see a lawsuit filed attempting to keep Trump off the ballot related to the January 6 , 2021 Capitol riot.
‘Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and was disqualified under the Constitution from the Colorado Ballot,’ Griswold said in a press release.
‘The Colorado Supreme Court got it right. This decision is now being appealed,’ she continued.
‘I urge the U.S. Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election.’
The Colorado Supreme Court put a stay – or pause – on its ruling until January 4 to allow time for the appeal process.
Former Trump attorney Jay Sekulow (pictured, left) filed a petition for Colorado’s Republican Party appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court the Colorado state Supreme Court’s 4-3 ruling to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot
Former Trump attorney Jay Sekulow’s conservative American Center for Law & Justice filed a petition Wednesday that would overturn Colorado’s controversial decision.
‘We’ve been saying from the day we took this case that this was one that would end up at the U.S. Supreme Court,’ Seklow wrote in a statement on the filing, along with his son Jordan.
‘Today, we just filed a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court’s dangerously flawed twisting of the 14th Amendment to ban President Trump from the ballot,’ wrote the father-son duo, who are representing Colorado’s GOP.
‘This is the most important case we have ever taken on,’ they added. ‘Because if we lose our right to vote, we lose our constitutional republic.’
‘We expect this case to move very quickly, and we will keep you updated on its progress.’
The first impact of the appeal is to extend the stay of the 4-3 ruling from Colorado’s highest court.
This puts the decision on pause until January 4 – the day before the state’s primary ballots are due at the printer – or until an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is finished, whichever comes first.
Trump says he also still plans to appeal the ruling to the nation’s highest court.
The Supreme Court has never ruled on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was added after the Civil War to prevent former Confederates from returning to government.
The clause states that anyone who swore an oath to ‘support’ the constitution and then ‘engaged in insurrection’ against it cannot hold government office – but the section specifically mentions several offices without directly naming the presidency.
The Colorado high court ruled that applies to Trump after he encouraged his supporters to engage in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Rioters intended to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election when they descended on Washington, D.C.
Colorado’s majority opinion is the first time in history that the 14th Amendment provision was used to block a presidential contender’s campaign.
Four justices appointed by Democratic governors, Justices, Richard L. Gabriel, Melissa Hart, William W. Hood III and Monica Márquez, all circled, voted to disqualify the former president from Colorado’s presidential primary ballot
‘The Colorado Supreme Court has removed the leading Republican candidate from the primary and general ballots, fundamentally changing the course of American democracy,’ the Colorado Republican Party’s attorneys wrote.
The filing was posted on the website of a group run by Jay Sekulow, a former attorney for Trump representing the Colorado Republican Party who announced he was filing the appeal Wednesday.
Colorado Republican Party chairman Dave Williams confirmed the appeal was filed Wednesday.
The attorneys added: ‘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.’
‘This will not only distort the 2024 presidential election but will also mire courts henceforth in political controversies over nebulous accusations of insurrection.’
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to take the case, either after the Colorado GOP’s appeal or Trump’s own appeal.
If Trump ends up off the ballot in Colorado, it would have minimal effect on his campaign because he doesn’t need the state, which he lost by 13 percentage points in 2020, to win the Electoral College in the presidential election. But it could open the door to courts or election officials striking him from the ballot in other must-win states.
Sean Grimsley, an attorney for the plaintiffs seeking to disqualify Trump in Colorado, said on a legal podcast last week that he hopes the nation’s highest court hurries once it accepts the case, as he expects it will.
‘We obviously are going to ask for an extremely accelerated timeline because of all the reasons I’ve stated, we have a primary coming up on Super Tuesday and we need to know the answer,’ Grimsley said.
More than a dozen states, including Colorado, are scheduled to hold primaries March 5 on what is known as Super Tuesday – the largest single-day primary election contest.
The Colorado Supreme Court claims Trump engaged in an insurrection and therefore under clause 3 of the 14th Amendment is disqualified from running for office – but Republicans argue the ex-president has never been charged with insurrection. Pictured: Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021 to block Congress certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election win
The Colorado case was considered the one with the greatest chance of success because it was filed by a Washington D.C.-based liberal group with ample legal resources – and all seven of the Colorado high court justices were appointed by Democrats.
Still, three of those Democrat-appointed justices were against the decision.
The unprecedented constitutional questions in the case haven’t split on neatly partisan lines, with several prominent conservative legal theorists among the most vocal advocates of disqualifying Trump under Section 3.
Additionally, the half-dozen plaintiffs in the Colorado case are all Republican or unaffiliated voters.
Trump has been scathing on his Truth Social account and at his rallies about the cases, calling them ‘election interference.’
He continued that on Wednesday, as he cheered a ruling earlier that day by the Michigan Supreme Court leaving him on the ballot, at least for the primary, in that state.
‘The Colorado people have embarrassed our nation with what they did,’ Trump said on Sean Hannity’s radio show.