Colorado District Court Judge Sarah Wallace, a left-wing jurist who contributed to an radical organization that has worked to prevent Republicans connected to January 6th from running for election, has ruled that the “insurrection clause” of the 14th Amendment does not apply to the President of the United States. Therefore former President Trump cannot be barred from appearing on the 2024 presidential ballot. Judge Wallace wrote in her ruling:
To lump the Presidency in with any other civil or military office is odd indeed and very troubling to the Court because as Intervenors point out, Section Three explicitly lists all federal elected positions except the President and Vice President. Under traditional rules of statutory construction, when a list includes specific positions but then fails to include others, courts assume the exclusion was intentional… The Court holds that it is unpersuaded that the drafters intended to include the highest office in the Country in the catchall phrase ‘office . . . under the United States.’
Last week, the Minnesota Sate Supreme Court dismissed a similar lawsuit brought by voters seeking to remove Trump from the state primary ballot.
The court ultimately decided that there was no provision under the 14th Amendment that prevented the former President from appearing on the primary ballot, but left the door open to challenges to his appearance on the general election ballot.
“There is no state statute that prohibits a major political party from placing on the presidential nomination primary ballot, or sending delegates to the national convention supporting, a candidate who is ineligible to hold office,” the Minnesota Supreme Court wrote in its ruling.
The New Hampshire Secretary of State has also ruled that the 14th Amendment does not bar former President Trump from the 2024 election ballot.
