Attempts by left-leaning groups and some Republican voters to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot in multiple states using the “insurrection” provision of the 14th Amendment continue to fail in the states where cases have been filed.
On Friday, a Colorado judge handed the former president a victory in one of the 14th Amendment cases, declaring that Trump was eligible to be on the state’s ballot, The Associated Press reported.
District Judge Sarah B. Wallace did say that the former president was guilty of engaging in an insurrection but found that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which names many positions that someone cannot attain if they are guilty of insurrection, does not specifically name the presidency.
“Part of the Court’s decision is its reluctance to embrace an interpretation that would disqualify a presidential candidate without a clear, unmistakable indication that such is the intent of Section Three,” the judge said.
“After considering the arguments on both sides, the Court is persuaded that ‘officers of the United States’ did not include the President of the United States,” she said. “It appears to the Court that for whatever reason the drafters of Section Three did not intend to include a person who had only taken the Presidential Oath.”
NBC News reported on Tuesday, however, that the state Supreme Court had agreed to hear an appeal of the case filed by legal groups representing anti-Trump Republican voters as well as the former president himself. The voters disagree that presidents are not covered under the clause, while Trump’s team will argue that he did not “engage in insurrection.”
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said the judge had overstepped.
“The district judge rightly rejected the far-left’s efforts to keep President Trump off the ballot, but she then went out of her way to wrongly criticize the President. We’ve asked the Colorado Supreme Court to strike her wrong-headed speculation, because it goes far beyond her jurisdiction,” Cheung said in a statement.
Last week, a state judge in Michigan ruled that Trump was still eligible to appear on that state’s ballot as well.
“Court of Claims Judge James Redford rejected arguments that Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol meant the court had to declare him ineligible for the presidency. Redford wrote that, because Trump followed state law in qualifying for the primary ballot, he cannot remove the former president,” The Associated Press reported.
What’s more, Redford ruled that it should be up to Congress to decide whether Trump should be disqualified from elected office under the amendment’s provision barring anyone who “engaged in insurrection.”
Redford said deciding whether an event constituted “a rebellion or insurrection and whether or not someone participated in it” are questions that are best left to Congress and not “one single judicial officer.”
Continuing, he wrote that a judge “cannot in any manner or form possibly embody the represented qualities of every citizen of the nation — as does the House of Representatives and the Senate.”
The AP noted that Free Speech For People, “a liberal group that has brought 14th Amendment cases in a number of states, said it will immediately appeal the ruling to the Michigan Court of Appeals.”
Earlier this month, a state judge in Minnesota ruled that Trump could appear on the ballot, turning away an identical challenge to his qualifications. Subsequently, the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected an appeal of the lower court’s decision, according to CNN.
However, the state’s highest court “said the challengers can try again to block him from the general election ballot if the former president wins the Republican nomination,” CNN added.
Trump is currently, by and far, the leading candidate for the GOP nomination. He has called the myriad of legal cases and charges against him “the greatest witch hunt” in the country’s history, as well as “election interference.”
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