The Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced on Wednesday that former President Donald Trump will be included on the ballot following an appeal filed by the Colorado Republican Party.
The party wrote in its appeal that the decision is “fundamentally changing the course of American democracy” by removing the current favorite to represent the Republican party in the 2024 presidential election.
“Unless the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision is overturned, any voter will have the power to sue to disqualify any political candidate, in Colorado or in any other jurisdiction that follows its lead. This will not only distort the 2024 presidential election but will also mire courts henceforth in political controversies over nebulous accusations of insurrection,” added the party in the appeal, as reported by WFAA.
The appeal was filed in response to the decision from the Colorado Supreme Court to ban Trump from the ballot, ruling that the former president violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution by allegedly engaging in an insurrection.
After the appeal’s filing, Griswold said that Trump would be included on the primary ballot to be submitted by the January 5 deadline unless the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the state court’s ruling or declined to consider the case before then, Fox News reported.
However, Griswold also released a statement to say that the former president “engaged in insurrection.”
“The Colorado Supreme Court got it right. This decision is now being appealed. I urge the U.S. Supreme Court to act quickly given the upcoming presidential primary election,” wrote Griswold in a social media post.
Sean Grimsley, an attorney for the plaintiffs seeking to remove Trump from the ballot, said that he expects SCOTUS to take up the case.
“We obviously are going to ask for an extremely accelerated timeline because of all the reasons I’ve stated, we have a primary coming up on Super Tuesday and we need to know the answer,” stated Grimsley, according to WFAA.
The decision from the Colorado Supreme Court comes as the former president deals with more than a dozen lawsuits claiming that he violated the Fourteenth Amendment, including an ongoing lawsuit in Maine.
Maine is taking a significant step by being the first state to allow Secretary of State Shenna Bellows to rule on the charges, according to ABC News.
Bellows was originally expected to rule on the case last week, but a combination of technical difficulties and the decision in Colorado has pushed that timeline back to this week.
However, Trump’s legal team is now requesting that Bellows recuse herself from the case, claiming that she has a “level of personal animus and bias so deep that she is rendered incapable of allowing a fair hearing of this pressing matter.”
“The Secretary is a completely biased Democrat partisan and a Biden supporter who is incapable of making a fair decision and allowing the people of Maine the right to vote for the candidate of their choosing,” said Trump’s team in a statement. “Any attempt to remove President Trump’s name from the ballot is blatant election interference.”
It is unclear whether Bellows will recuse herself from the case, but any potential decisions from the Secretary of State could be appealed in a state court.
