If Democrats had gotten their wish after the chaos former President Donald Trump unleashed in 2020, this year’s presidential election would be a lot more streamlined. The Democrats made several attempts to pass bills aimed at strengthening voting rights and setting a new floor for how states run federal elections, but they all failed to get past Republican filibusters. And so, heading into the 2024 cycle, the status quo remains the same. Each of the 50 states (and Washington, D.C.) has its own disjointed rules governing elections.
Keep that in mind as several challenges to Trump’s candidacy make their way through the courts. Colorado and Maine, through very different processes, have determined that the former president engaged in an insurrection in his attempt to overturn his 2020 loss and is therefore disqualified from holding office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. As they push back against those decisions, Republicans are being forced to confront exactly what it means for states to retain full control over their elections.
Republicans are being forced to confront exactly what it means for states to retain full control over their elections.
Efforts to knock Trump off the ballot have varied wildly based on the various election laws in the states where advocacy groups have filed disqualification suits on behalf of voters. Colorado was always a ripe target because of the mandate given to the secretary of state to determine a candidate’s qualifications. And in Maine, the decision to disqualify Trump came directly from Secretary of State Shenna Bellows herself without an intervening court order.
The Colorado Republican Party filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court last month, asking for an expedited hearing to overturn the state Supreme Court’s ruling. But the justices have traditionally shied away from overturning a state’s election law as ruled on by its Supreme Court. The 2000 decision in Bush v. Gore to overturn a recount order from Florida’s highest court was a notable exception, one that had obvious repercussions.
Instead, the Colorado GOP’s petition avoids the matter by focusing on the constitutional questions at play, namely whether the state Supreme Court was correct in finding that the 14th Amendment applies to the president and that Section 3 is self-executing without Congress’ passing a law to that effect. Most novel, though, is the claim the Colorado Supreme Court violated the state Republican Party’s First Amendment rights with its decision. It’s through that lens that the petitioners assert that the state Supreme Court violated state law in determining that Trump must be struck from the primary ballot.
“The Colorado Republican Party, not the Secretary, sets its internal rules and determines the requirements for Republican nominees,” the party’s lawyers wrote. “By directing the Secretary of State to disqualify candidates based on amorphous and contested factual findings subject to deferential review ... the Colorado Supreme Court violated the Republican Party’s right to freely associate and choose its political standard bearer.”
It’s an argument that the supreme courts of Michigan and Minnesota found convincing in their own rulings, determining that state law doesn’t allow for secretaries of state to determine primary candidates’ qualifications. But that’s where Colorado and Maine differ from Michigan and Minnesota: Their laws do allow for their secretaries of state to make that affirmation. And as the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land, those officials are bound to factor in its provisions — including the 14th Amendment — in enforcing their own laws.
That request is significant because a ruling on those issues wouldn’t just overturn the Colorado decision; it would also make any other claims across the country moot, no matter what state laws say.
In his filing to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, Trump puts a much less nuanced question before the justices: “Did the Colorado Supreme Court err in ordering President Trump excluded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot?” His lawyers’ argument does question whether state law was properly applied by taking aim at the process that led to his removal from the ballot. However, Trump also asks the Supreme Court to overturn the state court’s finding that he engaged in insurrection on and ahead of Jan. 6, 2021, and rule that Section 3 can’t be used to block him from the ballot anywhere.
That request is significant because a ruling on those issues wouldn’t just overturn the Colorado decision; it would also make any other claims across the country moot, no matter what state laws say. In Maine, where he filed his appeal in Superior Court on Tuesday, Trump was even more nitpicky in saying the law had been misapplied. Bellows had banned him from the ballot in part because, she says, he lied on the form he filled out to declare his candidacy. It requires prospective candidates to affirm that they meet all of the qualifications to run for the office, but she found that he isn’t qualified to hold office under Section 3. Trump’s counterargument: The form itself doesn’t mention the 14th Amendment as a qualification; therefore he didn’t really lie in signing it.
Bellows had already dismissed that claim in her ruling. Citing the Constitution’s requirement that a person be at least 35 to hold the presidency, she said, “if my office did not list the Article II qualifications on the form, I would not consequently be required to place a teenager on the presidential primary ballot.” Again, Maine law gives her the power to determine the eligibility of a presidential candidate. Trump’s appeal is essentially a request that, at least in his case, she be stripped of that power.
The U.S. Constitution has the main focus of outside observers, given the potential sweeping scope of the answers the Supreme Court hands down. But such rulings could weaken the control states have over their own elections within their borders. Republicans fought Democrats’ multiple attempts to add some standardization to our federal election laws because, until very recently, those Republicans argued that such state control should be seen as sacrosanct. The rush to abandon that principle showcases a constant truth: There is no principle they hold in higher esteem than protecting Trump.
