Trump’s Colorado ballot appeal gets legal boost from Senate Republicans

Senate Republicans’ campaign arm has filed legal arguments to the Supreme Court in support of former President Donald Trump’s appeal to remain on Colorado’s 2024 ballot.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee and its chairman, Sen. Steve Daines of Montana, urged the high court in a friend-of-the-court brief to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling that the GOP presidential candidate is ineligible under the Constitution’s insurrection clause because of his role in the 2021 U.S. Capitol riot.

The NRSC and Mr. Daines said they have “a unique and profound interest in this case” that threatens “to thwart the democratic process and the will of the American people in 2024 and beyond.”

Mr. Trump’s attorneys filed the appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday challenging the Colorado Supreme Court decision to bar him from the state’s ballot. Attempts to block Mr. Trump from the ballot in other states are underway.

In Maine, the secretary of state unilaterally removed Mr. Trump from the primary ballot based on the same legal argument that he violated Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits federal officers who engage in insurrection against the government from again holding federal office.

Mr. Trump’s attorneys said the Colorado ruling would “likely be used as a template to disenfranchise tens of millions of voters nationwide.”

The brief from the NRSC and Mr. Daines made a two-part legal argument for why the Colorado Supreme Court ruling was flawed.

First, they stated that even if Mr. Trump would be disqualified from taking office, he could still run, win and then ask Congress to remove any alleged disqualification. They said the vice president would serve as acting president “unless and until the disqualification is lifted.”

Second, the NRSC and Mr. Daines said the Colorado Supreme Court “ran roughshod over the First Amendment rights of voters and political parties” by preventing Americans from casting a ballot for someone who may ultimately be qualified to assume office.

“If left uncorrected, the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision will unleash electoral chaos in the fast-approaching 2024 elections,” they said. “It is virtually certain to lead to an untenable patchwork of state-court rulings on whether President Trump appears on the ballot, disenfranchising millions of voters in states that follow its lead.”

Derek Muller, a Notre Dame Law School professor and election law expert, suggested the legal arguments from the NRSC and Mr. Daines may present the strongest case yet for why the Supreme Court could rule in Mr. Trump’s favor.

“This NRSC amicus brief in Trump Colorado ballot case… is a very plausible (perhaps most likely) path forward for the Court to reverse, relying on a U.S. Term Limits-adjacent argument,” Mr. Muller posted on social media.

Mr. Daines was early among GOP senators to endorse Mr. Trump, making the endorsement in April.

Mr. Daines is tasked with electing a GOP Senate majority. He has also donated $5,000 from his leadership political action committee to Mr. Trump’s legal defense fund.