A former clerk said the high court will likely overturn the Colorado Supreme Court’s order.
A former U.S. Supreme Court law clerk claimed Wednesday that the high court will likely rule against the Colorado Supreme Court decision to bar former President Donald Trump from appearing on the state’s 2024 ballots.
Earlier this week, the Colorado high court ruled that the former president is disqualified from being on the ballot in the state because of his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach. The 4–3 ruling, which is based on a reading of a provision in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, is likely to be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, some analysts have noted.
The ruling applies only to Colorado’s March 5 Republican primary but it could affect President Trump’s status in the state for the Nov. 5 general election. Nonpartisan U.S. election forecasters view Colorado as safely Democratic, meaning that President Joe Biden will likely carry the state regardless of President Trump’s fate there.
Chris Landau, a former law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and the late Justice Antonin Scalia, said the Colorado ruling is “lawfare” and was one of “the most antidemocratic decisions we have seen in American history—that four unelected judges on a state Supreme Court have taken it upon themselves to disqualify someone who otherwise meets all the qualifications of the Constitution.”
Speaking to Fox News this week, Mr. Landau said he is confident that the U.S. high court will overturn the Colorado Supreme Court ruling after “[taking] one look at it.”
“It is terrifying to me as an American that this kind of lawfare is being waged, that courts are so presumptuous that they think it’s up to them to decide who can be on the ballot to let democracy work,” he added, saying that a judge’s opinions should not result in landmark rulings such as this.
“Why are these people so terrified that they’re bending all the rules to get Trump off the ballot? Let the people vote,” he stated.
