Trump asks Supreme Court to allow him to remain on Colorado ballot

Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to order him returned to the ballot in Colorado, urging the justices to overturn the decision of the state’s highest court deeming him ineligible to run in the 2024 election.

In a 43-page petition to the high court, Trump said Colorado’s justices improperly ruled that he had run afoul of the Constitution’s “insurrection clause” by stoking the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. State courts cannot make that determination, Trump’s attorneys say.

Trump’s legal team also contends that the Jan. 6 riot fails to qualify as an “insurrection,” that Trump’s exhortations to his crowd of supporters that day did not constitute incitement and that his statements were protected by the First Amendment.

“The United States has a long history of political protests that have turned violent,” attorneys for the former president and current GOP presidential frontrunner wrote. ”Nothing that President Trump did ‘engaged’ in ‘insurrection.’”

Trump’s lawyers also argue that even if he was deemed to have taken part in an insurrection, Congress has the clear power under the Constitution to waive that restriction to allow him to be sworn in, so he should remain on the ballot nationwide in the meantime.

Trump’s appeal to the Supreme Court was expected. The Colorado Republican Party separately appealed the decision last week, similarly arguing that only Congress — and not state courts or individual election officials — could invoke Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. A ruling in Trump’s favor could upend challenges to his eligibility that have emerged across the country and remain at varying stages of the process.

In all likelihood, Trump will appear on the Colorado primary ballot. The Colorado Supreme Court paused its decision pending the expected U.S. Supreme Court appeal. The Colorado secretary of state has until Friday to certify the candidates on the ballot. Election officials would then need to prepare, print out and mail those ballots to voters in the predominantly vote-by-mail state. So unless the Supreme Court issues a decision extraordinarily quickly before the looming deadline — something which is not expected — Trump will be included among the options that Colorado voters can select ahead of the state’s primary on Super Tuesday on March 5.

Both the Colorado GOP and the original challengers to Trump’s eligibility — who were backed by the liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has been leading the legal charge to have Trump disqualified — have urged the Supreme Court to take up the case.

And both have pleaded for an expedited timeline: The state GOP asked for a briefing and argument schedule that “permits the Court to resolve the case before March 5.” And the CREW-backed group wanted an even faster schedule, asking the court to schedule arguments and rule before Feb. 11 — the day before the ballots are scheduled to be sent out in Colorado.

Two states — Colorado and Maine — have determined that Trump is ineligible for the presidency because of his actions on Jan. 6 On Tuesday, Trump appealed the decision made by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, in state court there, advancing similar arguments to the one his legal team laid out in its filing to the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

While it’s unclear how soon the justices will act on the pending petitions, they are scheduled to hold a closed-door conference on Friday.