2024 Republican presidential primary candidate and former President Donald Trump has filed an appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to bar his name from the state's primary ballot to the United States Supreme Court, in which he asks the Justices to "reverse the Colorado ruling in a summary decision without oral argument":
“The Colorado Supreme Court has no authority to deny President Trump access to the ballot,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in the petition. “By doing so, the Colorado Supreme Court has usurped Congressional authority and misinterpreted and misapplied the text of section 3.”
Trump’s petition asks that the Supreme Court agree to take up the case and immediately reverse the Colorado ruling in a summary decision without oral argument. The other parties in the case previously agreed the justices should hear the case on an expedited schedule, so a decision may be issued before most states’ primaries, but they did not suggest the high court forgo the step of holding oral arguments.
Indeed, on Tuesday, the Colorado voters who brought the petition based on section 3 of the 14th Amendment urged SCOTUS to "expedite consideration" of the case, along with a separate petition by the Colorado GOP, as my colleague Jennifer Van Laar wrote:
The group of six Colorado voters who sued to keep Donald Trump off the state's Republican presidential primary ballot have asked the United States Supreme Court to "expedite consideration" of the Colorado Republican Party's petition for a writ of certiorari in the case, and to expedite the briefing and hearing schedule if that petition is granted.
As we reported, the Colorado Republican Party, which was an intervenor in the case in the state courts, filed its petition with the Supreme Court on December 27. That petition was accompanied by a motion asking SCOTUS to expedite consideration of the motion and also to expedite the timing of briefing/arguments if the motion is granted. That action/appeal by the Colorado GOP meant that the stay issued by the Colorado Supreme Court in the case would extend past January 4 and until such time as SCOTUS either declines to hear the case or all appeals are exhausted -- and that Trump's name would remain on the ballot.
As she mentioned, the appeals by Trump, the voters, and the state GOP might not matter in the short term; Trump's name is on the ballot. There's also the fact that the filing deadline for Colorado's primary is fast approaching on Friday.
In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said:
Crooked Joe Biden’s comrades, including the Colorado Supreme Court and CREW, a radical, left-wing activist group, are doing all they can to disenfranchise all American voters by attempting to remove President Trump, the leading candidate in the 2024 Presidential Election, from the primary ballot.
As this is a breaking story, RedState will bring you updates as they become available.
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