Va. Attorney General joined 27 states in requesting SCOTUS review of Colo. ballot case

Virginia’s Jason Miyares is one of roughly two dozen attorneys general from across the country who expressed support for the U.S. Supreme Court’s pending review of former President Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility.

Miyares, a Republican, joined attorneys general and legislative bodies from 27 states on Friday, in an amicus brief that asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal from the Colorado decision that is slated to keep Trump off the ballot for the state’s Presidential Primary Elections.

“The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove President Trump from the primary ballot is a clear abuse of power and something I’d expect to see in Cuba, not America,” Miyares said on Twitter in December and again in a press release on Friday. “In the United States, voters must maintain the power to choose their president. Removing your political opponent from the ballot is not ‘democracy’.”

SCOTUS to hear Colorado case

The high court agreed to hear the case, also on Friday, and fast tracked its briefing, according to SCOTUS Blog. Oral arguments in the case have been slated for Thursday, Feb. 8.

When asked for further comment Tuesday regarding the pending Supreme Court case, the Virginia Attorney General’s office declined.

“We do not comment on pending litigation,” Victoria LaCivita, spokesperson for the Virginia Attorney General’s office, said.

In the amicus brief, petitioners argue that the Colorado court decision cannot stand, and that it would throw the 2024 election into “chaos.”

“The Colorado courts decided ‘complicated’ constitutional questions through a truncated state process that denied former President Trump any opportunity for ‘basic discovery, the ability to subpoena documents and compel witnesses, workable timeframes to adequately investigate and develop defenses, and the opportunity for a fair trial,’” petitioners noted in the brief, and quoted one of the three dissenting Colorado judges, Justice Carlos A. Samour Jr.

Petitioners go on to argue that immediate intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court is needed to avoid widespread “chaos”; that it is up to Congress to determine if Trump has run afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause; and that the Colorado court’s definition of “insurrection” is standardless and vague.

Other states who signed onto the brief, led by West Virginia and Indiana, are Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, 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 on Monday in an attempt to remove Trump from the Virginia ballot.

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This article originally appeared on The Progress-Index: Va. AG Jason Miyares called Colo. court ruling "clear abuse of power"