The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision that Donald Trump is constitutionally ineligible to appear on the ballot in next year’s state primary is a stunning rebuke of the former president and a new level of accountability for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, threatening his 2024 electoral prospects in a way that the four criminal indictments against him have not.
While the court’s 4-3 decision Tuesday may not ultimately lead to the former president’s removal from the ballot in Colorado or any other state – because of expected appeals – the ruling puts the country in uncharted territory, raising the shocking prospect that a major party’s candidate could be barred from office.
It’s perhaps the final exclamation point to cap off a year of unprecedented events encircling Trump, posing new and potentially grave challenges to American democracy heading into a tumultuous election year from a former president who embraces political chaos.
Outside of the courtroom, Trump has embraced inflammatory rhetoric, fantasizing about becoming a dictator if he retakes power next year and launching attacks on his opponents reminiscent of Nazi propaganda. Trump made more incendiary remarks about immigrants at an event in Iowa Tuesday evening, responding to criticism from the Biden campaign and others that he was echoing Adolf Hitler.
“It’s crazy what’s going on. They’re ruining our country. And it’s true, they’re destroying the blood of our country. That’s what they’re doing. They’re destroying our country. They don’t like it when I said that,” Trump said. “And I’ve never read ‘Mein Kampf.’”
To Trump’s detractors, the Colorado decision signals that the legal system is finally beginning to hold the former president accountable for his efforts to overturn his election loss in 2020 and the attack on the US Capitol that unfolded on January 6, 2021.
“Responsibility for inciting an insurgency. “It is about time,” wrote Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who led the House’s first impeachment attempt against Trump.
But Tuesday’s ruling also could help propel Trump back to the White House, emboldening his supporters who have embraced the former president’s message that the criminal cases against him are unjustified and are a key reason he should be returned to power. Trump’s supporters slammed the Colorado decision, as they had done after each of his four criminal indictments this year.
“Democrats are so afraid that President Trump will win on Nov 5th 2024 that they are illegally attempting to take him off the ballot,” Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the House’s No. 3 Republican, said in a statement.
Even former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the most prominent anti-Trump Republican running for president, criticized Colorado’s decision. “I do not believe it is good for our country if he is barred from voting by a court,” he told New Hampshire voters.
The legal season of next year may be one of the most chaotic in American history.
The US Supreme Court will be faced with both deciding if Trump is eligible for the White House and whether he’s immune from prosecution for his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
“I can not overstate the implications of this evening, and I also want to emphasize how we now have two major, very critical Trump election issues barreling toward the court.” “They will have to decide both of these one way or the other,” said CNN’s Senior Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic.
The former president has been indicted four times, with criminal trials that could take place at the same time he is campaigning against President Joe Biden and potentially fighting in court to get back on the ballot.
According to a poll released Tuesday by The New York Times and Siena College, there is no clear winner between the two, with Trump taking 46% to Biden’s 44% among registered voters. Biden has 47% of those who are likely to vote, compared to Trump’s 45%. Importantly for Trump, the Times/Siena poll finds the former president leading Biden among registered voters who did not vote in the 2020 election, a finding that is consistent with other recent polling.
The significance of the unprecedented decision
Up until the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling, the numerous court-driven efforts to disqualify Trump from the ballot were not succeeding at blocking him from office, as one state court after another ruled against the lawsuits. Even in Colorado, a trial judge concluded last month that Trump had engaged in insurrection, but that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrectionist ban” does not apply to the presidency.
The Colorado Supreme Court reversed that finding on Tuesday. Now with that court’s unprecedented ruling, the notion of the courts removing Trump from the ballot in 2024 is no longer theoretical – it’s a real possibility.
The majority of the state Supreme Court wrote in its decision that it had “little difficulty” determining that January 6 was an insurrection. The court determined that Trump “engaged in” the insurgency and that Trump’s messages to his supporters in the run-up to the Capitol attack “were a call to his supporters to fight and that his supporters responded to that call.”
The four justices stressed that they “do not reach these conclusions lightly.”
“We are cognizant of the magnitude and weight of the issues now before us,” wrote the majority of the court. “We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”
The three dissenting justices cited several reasons they disagreed with the majority, including due process concerns that Trump has not been convicted of any insurrection-related crime. Chief Justice Brian Boatright wrote in his dissent that he believes Colorado election law “was not enacted to decide whether a candidate engaged in insurrection,” and said he would have dismissed the challenge to Trump’s eligibility.
Trump is not charged with insurrection in the federal election subversion case brought against him earlier this year by special counsel Jack Smith. However, the January 6-related charges involve many of the same actions cited by the Colorado court’s majority on Tuesday night.
The judge in Trump’s federal election subversion case had set a trial date for March 4, 2024, but that is now on hold as the DC US Circuit Court of Appeals considers whether Trump is immune and can be tried. In a bid to speed that appeals process, the special counsel has asked the US Supreme Court to step in.
It is still unclear whether that trial, or any of Trump’s other criminal charges, will be heard before Election Day next year.
However, the special counsel’s appeal to the US Supreme Court last week, combined with Trump’s intention to appeal the Colorado decision to the highest court, means that the federal justices are almost certain to play a key role in both Trump’s legal and electoral fates next year.
“When Donald Trump was in office, every single case of his from administration policy to his own business cases that came to the court, they were all fraught,” Biskupic said, “and these are especially fraught because they will affect his election process.
