A Democrat judge rejected Trump’s effort to shut down a lawsuit seeking to block him from the 2024 presidential ballot citing the 14th Amendment.
The legal theories are based on Section 3 of the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment which states public officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the US may be disqualified from public office.
Trump has not been charged with engaging in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.
Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace on Friday ruled against Trump for the third time and allowed the lawsuit to proceed. If Trump’s other pending motion to toss the case gets rejected, the case will go to trial on October 30.
Judge Wallace ripped Trump’s arguments against the lawsuit.
“If the Party, without any oversight, can choose its preferred candidate, then it could theoretically nominate anyone regardless of their age, citizenship, residency,” she wrote. “Such an interpretation is absurd; the Constitution and its requirements for eligibility are not suggestions, left to the political parties to determine at their sole discretion.”
The Trump campaign blasted the Democrat judge in response to her latest ruling.
“She is going against the clear weight of legal authority. We are confident the rule of law will prevail, and this decision will be reversed – whether at the Colorado Supreme Court, or at the U.S. Supreme Court,” a Trump campaign spokesperson said. “To keep the leading candidate for President of the United States off the ballot is simply wrong and un-American.”
Excerpt from CNN:
A judge has rejected three more attempts by former President Donald Trump and the Colorado GOP to shut down a lawsuit seeking to block him from the 2024 presidential ballot in the state based on the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban.”
The flurry of rulings late Friday from Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace are a blow to Trump, who faces candidacy challenges in multiple states stemming from his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection. He still has a pending motion to throw out the Colorado lawsuit, but the case now appears on track for an unprecedented trial this month.
A liberal watchdog group called Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed the Colorado case on behalf of six Republican and unaffiliated voters. The judge is scheduled to preside over a trial beginning October 30 to decide a series of novel legal questions about how the 14th Amendment could apply to Trump.
In a 24-page ruling, Wallace rejected many of Trump’s arguments that the case was procedurally flawed and should be shut down. She said the key question of whether Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold has the power to block Trump from the ballot based on the 14th Amendment “is a pivotal issue and one best reserved for trial.”
Wallace also swatted away arguments from the Colorado GOP that state law gives the party, not election officials, ultimate say on which candidates appear on the ballot.
Similar efforts to keep Trump off the ballot have already been shut down in Arizona and elsewhere.
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