Decision comes on heels of Maine’s Secretary of State ruling that President Trump cannot appear on the primary ballot in that state.
California’s secretary of state has kept former President Donald Trump on the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot despite the contrary decisions in Colorado and Maine that have sought to remove him.
On Dec. 28, California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, a Democrat, certified the list of candidates ahead of the March 5, 2024, Presidential Primary Election ballot.
Ms. Weber’s decision comes after being confronted with calls from the state’s lieutenant governor, Eleni Kounalakis, to remove President Trump from the ballot.
In a letter sent to California’s top election official on Dec. 20, one day after the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to disqualify President Trump from the state’s ballot, Ms. Kounalakis urged Ms. Weber to explore any and all legal options to ensure voters in California would not be able to cast a ballot for him.
California’s lieutenant governor, citing the Colorado Supreme Court’s Dec. 19 decision, accused President Trump of insurrection during the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the Capitol. She concluded that this disqualifies him from holding office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
The Colorado Republican Party has appealed the 4–3 ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, which is composed entirely of Democrat appointees, to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The nation’s highest court is expected to be the final arbiter on whether President Trump is eligible to hold office.
The decision by Ms. Weber regarding California’s ballot came just hours after Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, whose office oversees elections in the state, ruled that President Trump cannot appear on the primary ballot in that state, citing the same 14th Amendment clause at the center of President Trump’s eligibility question now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ms. Bellows paused her decision pending appeals to the state courts.
Maine Decision
In her 34-page ruling, Maine’s secretary of state, Ms. Bellows, argued that President Trump “over the course of several months and culminating on January 6, 2021, used a false narrative of election fraud to inflame his supporters and direct them to the Capitol to prevent certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power.”
