The Oregon Supreme Court declined, for now, to hear a challenge by voters seeking to bar former President Donald Trump from the state’s primary election ballot, saying it would wait until the U.S. Supreme Court rules first.
The left-leaning group Free Speech for People wrote a Dec. 8 petition to the state Supreme Court asking the court to weigh whether the so-called insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment bars Trump from the state’s ballot, asking them to decide the matter “before the late March 2024 finalization of the 2024 Oregon primary election ballots.”
Justices on the Oregon Supreme Court say that in light of the U.S. Supreme Court scheduling oral arguments to review a Colorado top court’s decision to nix Trump from the ballot, they would wait until a ruling comes down in that case, as the justices will decide for the nation how the 14th Amendment applies to Trump. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments over the case on Feb. 8 and could decide the matter quickly thereafter.
“Because a decision by the United States Supreme Court regarding the Fourteenth Amendment issue may resolve one or more contentions that relators make in the Oregon proceeding, the Oregon Supreme Court denied their petition for mandamus, by order, but without prejudice to their ability to file a new petition seeking resolution of any issue that may remain following a decision by the United States Supreme Court,” Oregon’s high court wrote on Friday.
The Friday decision effectively leaves the door open to revisit the 14th Amendment challenge in Oregon after the high court decides in Colorado.
How the justices will rule in the Trump v. Anderson dispute that would remove Trump from the state’s primary ballot, if allowed to take effect, remains to be seen. As of now, Trump remains on the ballot in Colorado until the U.S. Supreme Court makes a decision, which could decide to overturn the Colorado ruling, affirm it, or find a narrower path to a ruling.
Trump also remains on the ballot in Maine after the state’s Democratic secretary of state removed him from the ballot. The former president has appealed that decision, though it too could be affected by how the high court rules after the Feb. 8 oral argument over the dispute.
There are more than a dozen 14th Amendment challenges across various states weighing Trump’s eligibility to be on the ballot. The challenges stem from largely Democratic-leaning legal groups who say Trump engaged in an insurrection when he called on his supporters to protest against his loss of the 2020 election in Washington, D.C., a rally that subsequently transformed into a riot at the U.S. Capitol.
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Challengers say Section 3 of the 14th Amendment bars anyone from running for office if they have “engaged in insurrection.” The justices in Colorado found Trump did engage in insurrection, as did the secretary of state in Maine.
Trump has vowed to fight each of the 14th Amendment challenges and believes that rulings against him will be overturned, arguing that such challenges have made him “much more popular” than in 2016 or 2020.