Trump’s lawyers call for Supreme Court to end ballot removal efforts

Lawyers on behalf of former President Donald Trump urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn a lower court’s recent ruling to remove him from election ballots in Colorado. The Colorado Supreme Court removed Trump from the Republican primary ballot under the premise that Trump’s actions during the Capitol riots of Jan. 6, 2021, amounted to insurrection. Trump has denied any wrongdoing. Pending lawsuits filed in several states also are seeking to remove Trump’s name from this year’s ballot. The Court has less than two months before Super Tuesday, when Colorado and many other states will hold their primary elections, so Trump’s lawyers are asking the Court to be “swift and decisive.”

Why did Colorado remove Trump from the ballot? Colorado referenced a two-sentence provision in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which states that anyone who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” would no longer be eligible for office. The provision saw use through 1872 after the Civil War ended, but was largely forgotten for decades. Trump’s lawyers argue that rather than insurrection, the former President has called for “peace, patriotism, and law and order.” 

Dig deeper: Listen to Cal Thomas’ story on the Trump appeal in The World and Everything in It.