Donald Trump expected to appeal Maine and Colorado’s decision to disqualify him from presidential primary ballots
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Following separate decisions in Colorado and Maine to block former President Donald Trump from those state's 2024 election ballots, Trump is now expected to appeal the decision to ban him.
According to The Associated Press, Trump intends to challenge the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision at the U.S. Supreme Court and to contest the ruling made by Maine’s Democratic Secretary of State, Shenna Bellows, in the Superior Court of that state.
The decisions made by each state were backed by Section 3 of the 14th Amendment as evidence that Trump had “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the U.S. regarding the Jan. 6 insurrection, therefore keeping him off the ballot.
Following the Civil War, the 14th Amendment specifies that officials who have sworn to uphold the Constitution are prohibited from holding future office if they have participated in an insurrection. “But the amendment’s wording is vague, doesn’t explicitly mention the presidency and has only been applied twice since 1919,” per CNN.
This would be the first time the nation’s Supreme Court passed judgment on an issue regarding Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. As the appeals progress, there’s growing tension surrounding decisions that might disqualify Trump, who is also the leading 2024 Republican presidential candidate, from the ballots.
“Trump’s attorneys contend that’s a wild misreading of a vague clause that was rarely used after the 1870s,” The Associated Press added. “They contend that Jan. 6 was not legally an insurrection, that the provision doesn’t apply to the president and that whether Trump qualifies for the ballot is not a decision for unelected state judges to make.”
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