Colorado Supreme Court to weigh Trump ballot disqualification over Jan. 6 attack

© Reuters. Former U.S. President Donald Trump leaves the courtroom after attending the Trump Organization civil fraud trial, in New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., November 6, 2023. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lawsuit by a group of Colorado voters trying to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the state’s ballot next year over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol heads to the state Supreme Court on Wednesday.

The voters, backed by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, are challenging Trump’s eligibility to return to the presidency under an amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed after the Civil War that bars public officials from holding federal office if they have engaged in “insurrection.”

The Colorado lawsuit, which will be heard by the state Supreme Court beginning at 1 p.m. MT (2000 GMT), has been viewed as a test case for a wider campaign to contest Trump’s 2024 candidacy under the constitutional provision, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

A lower court ruling last month found that then-president Trump engaged in insurrection by inciting a mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol in an unsuccessful bid to stop Congress from certifying Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the November 2020 election and obstructing the transfer of power.

But Judge Sarah Wallace allowed Trump to remain on the ballot in the Colorado Republican primary, finding that as president, Trump was not “an officer of the United States” who could be disqualified under the amendment.

Lawyers for the voters argue that the judge’s ruling clashes with the U.S. Constitution and “common sense.”

“It would defy logic to prohibit insurrectionists from holding every federal or state office except for the highest and most powerful in the land,” lawyers for the group wrote in a court filing.

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, has asked the state Supreme Court to uphold the ruling allowing Trump on the ballot. His lawyers have disputed the finding that he engaged in insurrection and argued that courts do not have the authority to bar candidates from the ballot under the constitutional provision.

Watchdog groups and anti-Trump advocates have brought lawsuits in several states challenging Trump’s eligibility, though courts have so far rejected all attempts to keep Trump off the ballot.

Trump’s campaign has called the legal challenges an “un-American” attempt to prevent voters from being able to choose their preferred candidate.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.