An Illinois judge has ruled that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to appear on the state’s primary ballot due to his alleged violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, the decision will remain on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a similar case.
The case in Illinois revolves around Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that anyone who took an oath to the Constitution is barred from running for office if they “engaged in insurrection.”
The ruling will disqualify the former president from appearing on the state’s March 19 primary ballot and the November 5 general election ballot. Cook County Circuit Judge Tracie Porter wrote in her ruling that there was a “compelling” rationale in a similar ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court. However, the Colorado decision is currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, per CNN Politics.
“The court also realizes the magnitude of this decision and its impact on the upcoming primary Illinois elections,” Porter added.
Porter clarified that her ruling would remain on hold until a decision is made by SCOTUS in the Colorado case, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Should SCOTUS rule in favor of Colorado, Porter said that votes cast for the former president would “be suppressed.”
Free Speech For People, the left-wing advocacy group leading the charge to remove Trump from the ballot in Illinois, released a statement in which Ron Fein, the group’s legal director, called the ruling “a historic victory.”
“Every court or official that has addressed the merits of Trump’s constitutional eligibility has found that he engaged in insurrection after taking the oath of office and is therefore disqualified from the presidency,” continued Fein.
Trump’s attorneys filed an appeal just hours after Porter’s ruling, with an unnamed spokesperson claiming the ruling was “unconstitutional.”
“The Soros-funded Democrat front groups continue to attempt to interfere in the election and deny President Trump his rightful place on the ballot,” said the spokesperson, per The Hill. “Today, an activist Democrat judge in Illinois summarily overruled the state’s board of elections and contradicted earlier decisions from dozens of other state and federal jurisdictions.”
Illinois is now the third state to ban the former president from ballots, with judges in Colorado and Maine each ruling that Trump would be disqualified.
The U.S. Supreme Court has already heard oral arguments for the lawsuit attempting to ban Trump from the Colorado ballot, reportedly sounding skeptical about removing the Republican Party’s front-runner.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson presented concerns about the lack of specificity in the Fourteenth Amendment, noting that the presidency was not included in the list of offices in the amendment.
“Why didn’t they put the word president in the very enumerated list in Section 3? Doesn’t that at least suggest ambiguity?” she asked during oral arguments, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Both sides reportedly felt confident in their arguments following the hearing.
