Colorado’s top court ruled on Tuesday that former President Donald J. Trump is disqualified from holding office again because he engaged in insurrection leading up to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, an explosive ruling that injected more legal uncertainty into the 2024 presidential race and could put the basic contours of the election in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The 4-3 decision in the Colorado Supreme Court found that Section 3 of the 14th Amendment — which disqualifies from office those who engage in insurrection against the Constitution after taking an oath to support it — applies to Mr. Trump, making him ineligible to be listed on the state’s presidential primary ballot.
Mr. Trump’s campaign said immediately that it would appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices nominated by Mr. Trump. If the justices take up the case, they could determine Mr. Trump’s eligibility in all 50 states.
“We have full confidence that the U.S. Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these un-American lawsuits,” a campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, said.
In the decision, the majority of the Colorado judges wrote that they “do not reach these conclusions lightly.”
“We are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us,” they wrote. “We are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach.”
Here is what to know about the ruling:
-
If the U.S. Supreme Court justices take up the case, it will join a pile of other Trump-related matters they have agreed to decide, including whether he is immune from criminal prosecution for actions he took in office and the scope of an obstruction charge that is central to his federal Jan. 6 case.
-
Mr. Trump, speaking at a planned campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, on Tuesday night, did not address the decision. Other Republicans reacted with fury, and a Trump campaign fund-raising email assailed the ruling, writing that “this is how dictatorships are born.”
-
The Colorado court’s lengthy ruling ordered the Colorado secretary of state to exclude Mr. Trump from the state’s Republican primary ballot. The justices also reversed a Denver district judge’s finding last month that Section 3 did not apply to the presidency. They affirmed the district judge’s other key conclusions: that Mr. Trump’s actions before and on Jan. 6, 2021, constituted engaging in insurrection, and that courts had the authority to enforce Section 3 against a person whom Congress had not specifically designated.
-
Similar lawsuits in Minnesota and New Hampshire have been dismissed on procedural grounds. A judge in Michigan ruled last month that the issue was political and not for him to decide, and an appeals court affirmed the decision not to disqualify him. The plaintiffs there have appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court.