WASHINGTON, DC — Senate Republicans’ primary campaign arm filed a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting former President Donald Trump’s appeal of the Colorado Supreme Court’s “unconstitutional” decision striking his name from the 2024 primary ballot in the state.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) brief argues the Colorado Supreme Court “misapplied the Constitution to impermissibly exclude a candidate for federal office from the ballot in the Republican Party’s upcoming primary election.”
The Colorado Court, which reversed a lower court opinion, justified its decision by unilaterally determining Trump “incited an insurrection” on January 6, 2021, therefore violating the Fourteenth Amendment’s “Insurrection Clause” in Section 3. That clause says a federal official — which traditionally has not included the offices of president or vice president — cannot hold office if they have engaged in an insurrection.
The court’s determination was made despite Trump having never been convicted of that or any other crime or even been charged with the crime of insurrection. The U.S. Senate acquitted him of charges of engaging in insurrection, and he continues to deny wrongdoing.
The NRSC amicus brief, or “friend of the court” brief, claims, “whether or not Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment applies, it unquestionably does not allow Colorado to exclude President Trump from the ballot,” saying Congress has “sole prerogative” to do so.
It reads:
Section 3 identifies a disqualification from serving in certain offices but does not disqualify a covered person from running for office. And that textual distinction is particularly important because, unlike certain other disqualifications, Section 3 makes that disqualification removable—and it commits the decision of whether and when to remove it exclusively 3 to Congress. So even if the Colorado Supreme Court were correct that President Trump cannot take office on Inauguration Day, that court had no basis to hold that he cannot run for office on Election Day and also seek removal of any alleged disqualification from Congress if necessary.
It argues the court “altered the qualifications for the office of President” and “effectively usurped Congress’s sole authority to decide when, if at all, to remove any Section 3 disqualification.”
Secondly, the brief argues the court “violated [voters’] First Amendment rights to support the candidate of their choice even if they believe a future disqualification is a possibility,” violating the “right of the American people to nominate and vote for the Presidential candidate of their choice.”
NRSC Chairman Steve Daines (R-MT) is the only member of Senate leadership to formally endorse Trump.
Yet a growing number of Republican officials have coalesced around Trump as he surges towards the nomination. All five members of House Republican leadership have endorsed him, and he recently added the endorsement of Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), with whom his administration worked closely on national security and immigration and border security.
The Iowa caucus takes place on January 15, and the New Hampshire primary is eight days later.
That tight timeline provides an incentive for the U.S. Supreme Court to act swiftly. A ruling by the SCOTUS in the Colorado case would likely settle Section 3 cases across the country.
The NRSC’s brief was filed by Noel Francisco, former solicitor general; John Gore, principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division; and other high-profile attorneys.
The case is Trump v. Anderson, and it has not yet been assigned a docket number in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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