WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 21: The U.S. Supreme Court is shown June 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. The court is expected to issue a series of opinions this week, including a decision today in favor of Goldman Sachs to avoid a class action lawsuit by investors. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

U.S. Supreme Court justices heard oral arguments Thursday in a landmark case over whether former President Donald Trump should be barred from the 2024 presidential ballot.

A majority of the justices, including liberal members of the court, expressed skepticism about a ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court that said Trump, the GOP presidential frontrunner, is disqualified from appearing the state’s presidential primary ballot.

A main point of skepticism that emerged through the justices’ exchanges with attorneys for Trump and the plaintiffs was whether states have the authority to disqualify federal candidates.

Among other apparent objections to the Colorado decision concerned whether the constitutional provision at issue applies to the president, who can enforce it, the implications for democracy if a candidate can be barred from the ballot, the “disuniformity” that would result if states disqualified candidates using different standards, and the definition of “insurrection.”

The hearing concerned a Colorado Supreme Court ruling from December that found Trump to be disqualified from holding the office and ordered Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold not to include Trump’s name on the Colorado presidential primary ballot.

The ruling came in a lawsuit that was filed in state district court in September by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on behalf of six Colorado voters, who argued Trump is disqualified from office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Section 3, ratified after the Civil War, prohibits someone who took an oath to support the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” from holding office again.

“Donald Trump tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election,” the lawsuit said. “His efforts culminated on January 6, 2021, when he incited, exacerbated, and otherwise engaged in a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol by a mob who believed they were following his orders, and refused to protect the Capitol or call off the mob for nearly three hours as the attack unfolded.”

The district court judge, relying on a five-day evidentiary hearing with expert testimony and extensive briefs, determined that Trump had engaged in insurrection but that Section 3 doesn’t apply to presidents.

The Colorado Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling affirmed the district court’s finding that Trump engaged in insurrection but, in a reversal of the district court’s order, also concluded that Section 3 applies to presidents.

Trump appealed that decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in taking the case framed the scope of its review in broad terms: “Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot?”

Its answer to that question will have profound implications throughout the country that go beyond this year’s election. Efforts to disqualify Trump from the ballot have emerged in most states, and he has already been disqualified in Maine.

Critics of the lawsuit, even among some Trump opponents, have argued that disqualification of Trump would be a violation of democratic principles, and they say defeat at the ballot box is the best way to bar him from office. Proponents of disqualification argue that the framers of Section 3 intended it as a form of constitutional self-defense against precisely the kind of threat Trump represents and that the provision itself is meant to preserve democracy.

The plaintiffs include former Republican U.S. representative from Rhode Island Claudine Schneider, who now lives in Colorado; former Republican Colorado House and Senate Majority Leader Norma Anderson; Denver Post columnist and Republican activist Krista Kafer; Michelle Priola, Kathi Wright, and Christopher Castilian.

The court is expected to issue a ruling in the case sometime before Colorado’s March 5 presidential primary election.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

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WACO, TEXAS - MARCH 25: Former U.S. President Donald Trump applauds at the conclusion of a rally at the Waco Regional Airport on March 25, 2023 in Waco, Texas. Former U.S. president Donald Trump attended and spoke at his first rally since announcing his 2024 presidential campaign. Today in Waco also marks the 30 year anniversary of the weeks deadly standoff involving Branch Davidians and federal law enforcement. 82 Davidians were killed, and four agents left dead. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

A lawsuit filed in Colorado seeks to bar former President Donald Trump from appearing as a 2024 presidential candidate on ballots in the state.

The suit was filed by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on behalf of six Colorado voters, who argue Trump is disqualified under a provision of the 14th Amendment that bars certain office-seekers who have engaged in insurrection.

“Donald Trump tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election,” the lawsuit says. “His efforts culminated on January 6, 2021, when he incited, exacerbated, and otherwise engaged in a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol by a mob who believed they were following his orders, and refused to protect the Capitol or call off the mob for nearly three hours as the attack unfolded.”

The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Denver District Court. The plaintiffs include former Republican U.S. representative from Rhode Island Claudine (Cmarada) Schneider, who now lives in Colorado; former Colorado House and Senate Majority Leader Norma Anderson, an unaffiliated voter who recently left the Republican party; Denver Post columnist and Republican activist Krista Kafer; Michelle Priola, Kathi Wright, and Christopher Castilian.

The defendants are Trump and Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat.

Trump is the leading Republican candidate for president in next year’s race.

Though the lawsuit was filed earlier than many expected, it is not a surprise. In July, CREW’s executive vice president and chief counsel, Donald K. Sherman, told Newsline the organization planned to bring 14th Amendment-based lawsuits against Trump’s candidacy but declined at the time to say in which states those suits would be filed, though he added that there were “attractive factors with respect to Colorado.”

A CREW press release said, “Colorado is a good venue to bring this first case, but it will not be the last.”

Last week, Michigan resident Robert Davis filed a 14th Amendment challenge to Trump’s candidacy in Michigan, and a lawyer last month filed a similar lawsuit seeking to bar Trump’s candidacy in Florida.

Many pro-democracy advocates say the insurrection disqualification clause in Section 3 of the 14 Amendment disqualifies Trump from holding public office. The passage, adopted after the Civil War, says no person who took an oath to support the Constitution then “engaged in insurrection” can hold any office in the United States.

Newsline had not received a response by the time of publication to an email seeking comment sent to the Trump campaign.

Griswold, an outspoken critic of election deniers and Trump’s “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen from him, said issues raised by the lawsuit are important for a court to decide.

“There are real questions about Colorado law. There are real questions about the United States Constitution. And I’m hopeful that this case will provide guidance to the state of Colorado but also election officials across the nation on Trump’s eligibility to run for office,” Griswold told Newsline on Wednesday.

She said those questions include whether the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause prohibits a candidate from running for office or being seated in office. There is also a question about who has the authority to decide whether a candidate is disqualified under the amendment, Griswold said.

“And in Colorado, we don’t have a law or a case that tells us whether a disqualified candidate is permitted to be placed on the ballot in the first place,” she added. “So those are all open legal and constitutional questions, and that’s why it’s so important for a court to resolve this crucial question for us here in Colorado and across the nation.”

Griswold declined to say how she would respond if courts rule in a way that grants her the authority to bar Trump from the Colorado ballot. But she made clear her view of Trump’s actions around the 2020 election, including that Trump did “incite an insurrection and attack our democracy.”

“Look, Donald Trump tried to steal the 2020 election, it was a blatant attack on the United States and the American people. It’s a blatant attack on the fundamental right to vote,” Griswold said.

She referred to recent criminal indictments against Trump and his supporters for their efforts to reverse the 2020 election results, and she said “the criminal charges are about holding him personally accountable for his actions. The other question is that the country also needs to be protected, electorally, from continued attacks on democracy, and Americans will have various opportunities to protect the country, including at the ballot box, several times in the upcoming election next year.”

The question of whether Trump is disqualified under the 14th Amendment has recently gained wide attention, particularly after several conservative legal commentators wrote that the amendment indeed bars Trump from office.

No presidential candidates have yet qualified for the Colorado ballot. Candidates have until Dec. 11 to submit ballot qualification documents to Griswold’s office. The deadline for Griswold to certify names for the 2024 Colorado presidential primary ballot is Jan. 5.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and Twitter.

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