Vivek Ramaswamy vows to withdraw from Colorado ballot unless Trump is reinstated
Republican presidential aspirant Vivek Ramaswamy has vowed to pull out of the Colorado primary ballot unless former.
US President Donald Trump is reinstated following the state’s historic Supreme Court ruling on Tuesday declaring him ineligible for office for his role in the US Capitol attack, reported Fox News.
Calling the Colorado Supreme Court ruling ‘un-American’, ‘unconstitutional’, and ‘unprecedented’, Ramaswamy took to microblogging site X and wrote, “I pledge to *withdraw* from the Colorado GOP primary unless Trump is also allowed to be on the state’s ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley to do the same immediately – or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver which will have disastrous consequences for our country.”
The Colorado Supreme Court’s disqualification, which was made under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, cited Trump’s conduct during the Capitol riots on January 6, 2021. The 4-3 ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court made Trump the first presidential candidate in US history to be deemed ineligible for the White House under a rarely used provision of the US Constitution that bars officials who have engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office. However, the 4-3 ruling was stayed until January 4 because of likely appeals.
“The 14th Amendment was part of the “Reconstruction Amendments” that were ratified following the Civil War. It was passed to prohibit former Confederate military and political leaders from holding high federal or state office. These men had clearly taken part in a rebellion against the United States: the Civil War. That makes it all the more absurd that a left-wing group in Colorado is asking a federal court to disqualify the 45th President on the same grounds, equating his speech to rebellion against the United States,” Ramaswamy wrote.
“And there’s another legal problem: Trump is not a former “officer of the United States,” as that term is used in the Constitution, meaning Section 3 does not apply. As the Supreme Court explained in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (2010), an “officer of the United States” is someone appointed by the President to aid him in his duties under Article II, Section 2. The term does not apply to elected officials, and certainly not to the President himself,” he explained.
“The Framers of the 14th Amendment would be appalled to see this narrow provision—intended to bar former U.S. officials who switched to the Confederacy from seeking public office—being weaponized by a sitting President and his political allies to prevent a former President from seeking reelection. Our country is becoming unrecognizable to our Founding Fathers,” he explained.
US HOUSE SPEAKER REACTS
Responding to the developments, US House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Colorado court’s ruling to bar Trump from the state’s primary election was a partisan attack.
“Today’s ruling attempting to disqualify President Trump from the Colorado ballot is nothing but a thinly veiled partisan attack,” Johnson said on Tuesday.
Johnson emphasised that regardless of political affiliation, every US voter should not be denied the right to support Trump, who is the leader in every poll of the Republican primary.
The House Speaker added that he trusts the US Supreme Court will set aside the court’s “reckless” decision and let the American people decide the next US president.
Taking to X, Johnson wrote, “Today’s ruling attempting to disqualify President Trump from the Colorado ballot is nothing but a thinly veiled partisan attack. Regardless of political affiliation, every citizen registered to vote should not be denied the right to support our former president and the individual who is the leader in every poll of the Republican primary. We trust the U.S. Supreme Court will set aside this reckless decision and let the American people decide the next President of the United States.”