Former president Donald Trump urged the US Supreme Court on Wednesday to toss out a ruling by Colorado’s highest court that would keep him off the presidential primary ballot in the western state.
The Colorado Supreme Court barred Trump last month from appearing on the Republican primary ballot in the state because of his role in the January 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol by his supporters.
Lawyers for the former Republican president, in a 43-page filing, asked the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which includes three Trump appointees, to agree to hear the case and “summarily reverse the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling.”
They said the ruling, “if allowed to stand, will mark the first time in the history of the United States that the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major-party presidential candidate.
“The question of eligibility to serve as President of the United States is properly reserved for Congress, not the state courts, to consider and decide,” they added.
The Colorado case filing comes one day after the 77-year-old Trump lodged an appeal against a ruling by the top election official in Maine that would keep him off the primary ballot in the northeastern state.
Trump’s attorneys urged the Maine Superior Court to toss out the ruling by Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, calling her a “biassed decision maker” who “acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner.”
The Colorado Supreme Court and Maine secretary of state both ruled that Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is ineligible to appear on the primary ballot because of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Section Three of the 14th Amendment bars anyone from holding public office if they engage in “insurrection or rebellion” after once pledging to support and defend the Constitution.
The amendment, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War, was aimed at preventing supporters of the slave-holding Confederacy from being elected to Congress or from holding federal positions.
Similar 14th Amendment challenges to Trump’s eligibility have been filed in other states as well. Courts in Minnesota and Michigan recently ruled that Trump should stay on the ballot in those states.
The twice-impeached former president is scheduled to go on trial in Washington in March for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.
He also faces racketeering charges in Georgia for allegedly conspiring to upend the election results in the southern state.
Maine and Colorado hold their presidential nominating contests on March 5 — also known as “Super Tuesday” — when voters in more than a dozen states, including California and Texas, go to the polls.