California is looking to become the second state to throw former President Donald Trump off the ballot, with the lieutenant governor asking the California secretary of state to explore legal paths to achieve that goal.
In a letter to Sec. of State Shirley Weber on Wednesday, California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis wrote that, based on the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that disqualified Trump from that state’s ballot earlier in the week, California has grounds to do the same.
“I urge you to explore every legal option to remove former President Donald Trump from California’s 2024 presidential primary ballot,” Kounalakis states.
“California must stand on the right side of history. California is obligated to determine if Trump is ineligible for the California ballot for the same reasons described in Anderson. The Colorado decision can be the basis for a similar decision here in our state. The constitution is clear: you must be 35 years old and not be an insurrectionist.”
As The Dallas Express previously reported, Colorado’s high court disqualified Trump from the state’s ballot, most immediately impacting the Republican primary. After several days of hearings, the court found that the former president had incited an insurrection against the United States on January 6, 2021.
However, as other legal experts — like former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr — have noted, not even the Justice Department’s criminal charges against the ex-president have accused him of that offense. Another criticism leveled by Barr and others was that the former president has been denied his due process rights.
Yet others, like the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake, have argued that Trump is simply reaping what he has sown. Blake noted that Trump had been a vocal advocate for disqualifying Barack Obama under the theory that he was not born in the United States and, therefore, is “suffering under a standard he himself attempted to set for America’s political system.”