The fate of former President Donald Trump‘s primary ballot access in Colorado got a boost Thursday from 46 Republican senators, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), calling on the Supreme Court to keep him on the ballot.
More than two dozen amicus briefs have been filed to the public docket for the Supreme Court case over whether Trump, the Republican front-runner for the 2024 presidential election, is disqualified from appearing on the Centennial State’s primary ballot under a 14th Amendment provision barring anyone who engaged in insurrection from holding office again.
In the latest brief, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), 177 Republican lawmakers joined in supporting Trump’s effort to remain on the state’s ballot and raised doubts about whether Trump holds any responsibility for the violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The lawmakers pointed to the former president’s remarks before and after the riot began that day, noting in their brief that “[i]t is hard to imagine an actual insurrectionist quickly asking for peace and encouraging disbandment.
“But once ‘engage in’ is defined so broadly, even significant countervailing evidence can simply be labeled as a ruse, as insufficient, or even as an implied recognition and praise of ongoing violence,” the lawmakers argued in the brief. “Enterprising state officials, in other words, may conclude that ‘Peace means War,’” a reference to George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Notably, McConnell was the most prominent senator in Trump’s party who laid blame for the Jan. 6 riot at Trump’s feet.
“The entire nation knows who is responsible for that day. Beyond that, I don’t have any immediate observations,” McConnell said in December 2022, shortly after the now-defunct House committee investigating the riot produced its report blaming Trump for the Capitol breach.
The amicus brief by Republican lawmakers sought to make three points clear to the justices, who are slated to weigh the Colorado Supreme Court’s 4-3 decision from December 2023 to remove Trump from the state’s primary ballot.
In summary, the lawmakers said Congress, “not any state court,” is the only branch of government that can disqualify a candidate from running for office, explaining, “Congress must pass authorizing legislation to enforce” Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. They also disagreed with Colorado’s finding that Section 3 applies to the presidential office, citing “textual indicators” in the Constitution that show “Section 3 simply does not apply to someone whose only former governmental position was President of the United States.” Finally, the lawmakers argued that Colorado’s decision could create a slippery slope that leads to “widespread de-balloting of political opponents.”
The high court is slated to hear oral arguments over the dispute on Feb. 8. The original lawsuit was backed by a liberal group known as the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which represented voters in Colorado who believed Trump was responsible for the riot and should be barred from the ballot under the Civil War-era provision of the Constitution.
Also included on the list of lawmakers were at least three members of Congress who have endorsed Trump’s primary opponent, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Reps. Bob Good (R-VA), Chip Roy (R-TX), and Tom McClintock (R-CA) have backed DeSantis but also joined the amicus brief supporting Trump’s legal effort. Trump defeated DeSantis by 30 percentage points at the Iowa caucuses earlier this week.
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Maine’s Democratic secretary of state made a similar effort to remove Trump from the state’s primary ballot last month, but a judge ruled on Wednesday that that effort will be stalled pending the Supreme Court’s decision on the Colorado case.
Trump is expected to file opening briefs to the high court later Thursday, which will state his reasoning for the justices to overturn the Colorado decision.