Va. Attorney General joined 25 states in asking SCOTUS to overturn Colo. ballot case

Virginia’s Jason Miyares is one of roughly two dozen attorneys general from across the country who petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado decision that determined President Donald Trump’s ineligibility.

Miyares, a Republican, joined attorneys general and legislative bodies from 25 states on Friday in an amicus brief that asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado decision that is slated to keep Trump off the ballot for the state’s Presidential Primary Election. Miyares was one of 27 representatives from state governments who petitioned the high court to take up the case in early January.

“It’s up to the American people to decide who the next President of the United States is,” Miyares said in a statement. “Removing your political opponent from the ballot isn’t democracy, and it isn’t acceptable.”

Brief arguments

In the amicus brief, petitioners argue that the Colorado court decision, if affirmed, could threaten to “upend our constitutional order.”

“In declaring that former President Donald Trump is ineligible to run for President in the coming election,” the coalition wrote, “the Colorado Supreme Court has effectively reordered the roles of all the relevant players in presidential elections.”

Petitioners go on to argue that Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment – which disqualifies a person who engaged in insurrection from seeking public office – requires Congress to act before an individual can be disqualified as an insurrectionist.

“But Colorado chose to act on its own,” they wrote. “The Colorado court’s decision strikes a serious blow to the Constitution’s structural separation of powers.”

Petitioners stated, that in determining Trump engaged in insurrection, the Colorado court fashioned a definition of insurrection that is “standardless and vague.”

“Altogether, the Colorado decision undermines every branch of government in deeply problematic ways: threatening the power of a President, seizing choices that would otherwise be left to Congress, forcing courts into outcomes that will necessarily undermine their own legitimacy, and imperiling the individual States’ rights to give their citizens’ votes actual meaning,” the petitioners wrote.

Impeached but not convicted

Trump was impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives for his role in inciting the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol Building. He was acquitted in February 2021 by the Senate after 57 Senators found him guilty – 10 short of the two-thirds vote needed to convict the former president.

The high court agreed to hear the Colorado case on Jan. 5 and fast tracked its briefing. Oral arguments in the case have been slated for Thursday, Feb. 8. The Colorado presidential primary is scheduled to take place on March 5, Super Tuesday. Trump was declared the winner of the Iowa Caucus, which officially kicked off the primary season, on Monday.

Other attorneys general from other states who signed onto Friday’s amicus brief, led by West Virginia and Indiana, are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.

Colorado’s domino effect

The Colorado State Supreme Court ruled 4-3 to remove Trump from the primary ballot on Dec. 19, after it determined the former president to be ineligible under the insurrection clause in the U.S. Constitution.

A handful of states took up the question of Trump’s eligibility, following his indictment on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 Presidential Election results, after the Colorado decision.

In Maine, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said the “insurrectionist ban" in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution applies to Trump and determined his name would be removed from the ballot. Officials have received threats following the decisions. The state supreme court in Michigan rejected a bid to remove Trump from its Republican primary ballot on Dec. 27, and on Dec. 29, California’s Secretary of State Shirley Weber determined the former president will remain on its ballot.

On Dec. 29, a federal district court judge dismissed 19 motions aimed at removing Trump from the Republican primary ballot in Virginia. The plaintiffs in that case, Roy Perry-Bey and Carlos Howard, said they again filed a request in a circuit court in January in an attempt to remove Trump from the Virginia ballot.

This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Jason Miyares one of 25 to petition SCOTUS to overturn Colo. case