OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Attempts by left-wing groups and disaffected Republican voters to keep former President Donald Trump off the ballot using an obscure provision of the U.S. Constitution have, so far, failed miserably, though the effort continues in some states.
Last week, 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 several federal elected offices that someone cannot run for if they are guilty of insurrection, does not specifically list 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, however, that the state Supreme Court had agreed to hear an appeal of the case filed by legal groups representing anti-Trump Republican voters. The former president himself also filed an appeal because he disagreed with Wallace’s ruling that he participated in an “insurrection.”
Meanwhile, 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.
Redford also noted he believes 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 the decision over whether an incident 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 judge in Minnesota also ruled that Trump could appear on the state’s ballot next year, turning away an identical challenge to his qualifications. Following that decision, the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected an appeal of the lower court’s ruling, according to CNN.
However, Minnesota’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.
Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman, said he believes judges in these cases have overstepped their authority.
“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,” he said in a statement following the Colorado decision.
“We’ve asked the Colorado Supreme Court to strike her wrong-headed speculation, because it goes far beyond her jurisdiction,” he added.
Trump is, by a wide margin, the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Recently polls have shown him pulling ahead of President Joe Biden, especially in crucial swing states he’ll need to pull off a victory next November.
