Colorado kicked Trump off the ballot. What’s next for 2024?
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 20 December 2023
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
In a momentous ruling that may shape U.S. political history, the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that former president Donald Trump engaged in insurrection and is therefore disqualified from the presidency.
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The decision by Colorado’s highest court, the first of its kind involving Trump, would keep him off the 2024 primary ballot in the state over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
A state district court previously ruled that Trump had engaged in insurrection but that the relevant section of the 14th Amendment did not apply to presidents. The state Supreme Court upheld the former finding and reversed the latter, in a 4-3 decision.
The Post’s Patrick Marley, who reports on voting rights and democracy, explains the historical roots of the ruling and how it may have a broader political impact for Trump.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Tuesday night will go down in U.S. political history. |
| 0:07.0 | Donald Trump could be knocked off the ballot for President in Colorado. A court there said that the former president would the So what the Colorado Supreme Court said was that January 6th the attack on the |
| 0:25.9 | capital was an insurrection that Donald Trump had engaged in that insurrection. |
| 0:30.3 | As a result he is not qualified to hold the office of president again and therefore cannot be on the ballot, even the primary ballot in the state of Colorado. |
| 0:39.0 | Patrick Marley reports on voting rights and democracy for the post. |
| 0:43.4 | He has closely followed this case in Colorado. |
| 0:46.6 | And to see a court keep a major presidential candidate off the ballot is pretty stunning. |
| 0:51.4 | It's an explosive decision with huge |
| 0:54.4 | implications for Trump. It's incredibly significant and worrisome to him in a bigger |
| 1:00.2 | picture because other states could do the same thing and if he's held off of the |
| 1:04.9 | ballot in swing states or red states then it would be nearly impossible to win the presidency. From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post reports. |
| 1:18.0 | I'm Martine Powers, and it's Wednesday, December 20th. |
| 1:22.0 | Today, I am speaking with my colleague Patrick |
| 1:24.8 | about this court decision in Colorado, |
| 1:27.0 | and how a lesser known clause in the 14th Amendment |
| 1:30.6 | might end up reshaping the 2024 race for president. |
| 1:34.0 | I want to talk for a second about the context of how this case got to the Colorado Supreme Court. |
| 1:45.0 | So maybe you can go back and explain what was the path that this took. |
| 1:49.0 | To think about how this all begins, you have to go back quite a bit in history. |
| 1:53.6 | After the Civil War the United States passed the 14th Amendment and other amendments to the Constitution in response to the Civil War. |
| 2:08.0 | The 14th Amendment, of course, is widely known because it guarantees civil rights to everyone, the Equal Protection Clause. |
| 2:15.0 | It also has a provision that is less widely known or certainly was less widely known until |
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