California official seeks to boot Trump from ballot after landmark Colorado ruling

Decision by Colorado’s highest court sets up SCOTUS battle over 2024 eligibility

The dam has officially broken following the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to bar Donald Trump from appearing on the ballot in that state.

A Democratic state official in California is now calling for the former president to be stripped of ballot access in that state too, citing the Colorado court’s finding that Mr Trump had participated in an insurrection via his support and tangential leadership of the mob which attacked the US Capitol on January 6, attempting to halt the election certification process.

Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis sent a letter to the secretary of state urging her to make a similar determination in the days ahead; California’s deadline for certifying ballots for the upcoming 2024 primary is this coming week.

“[T]he Colorado Supreme Court held in Anderson v. Griswold... that Trump’s insurrection disqualifies him under section three of the Fourteenth Amendment to stand for presidential re-election. Because the candidate is ineligible, the court ruled, it would be a ‘wrongful act’ for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on that state’s presidential primary ballot."

Ms Kounalakis added in an interview with local news affiliate KCRA 3 that the final decision lay in the hands of the secretary of state’s office. Shirley Weber, the California secretary of state, did not respond to requests for comment from the news outlet on Wednesday.

"We will all wait to see what Dr Weber decides to do. We do understand it’s her call," said Ms Kounalakis.

Mr Trump’s exclusion from the ballot in Colorado is almost certain to set up a battle before the US Supreme Court before primaries take place in the weeks ahead. More states — particularly those where Democrats control state government — are likely to at least make the attempt at stripping Mr Trump from appearing on the ballot.

Proponents of the idea note that Republicans in Congress refused to convict Mr Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors because he was no longer in office when the second impeachment trial took place; some of those who did participate directly in the riot, such as leaders of the rightwing Oathkeepers militia, were convicted of seditious conspiracy in their individual trials.

Other commentators like The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell have argued that regardless of whether or not Mr Trump’s actions fit the bill of an “insurrection”, exclusion from the ballot via court decision only serves to feed into an air of illegitimacy that hangs over the US election system like a dark cloud thanks in no small part due to the former president’s constant false allegations of election fraud.

The former president has even less chance of winning California in a general election than he does of winning Colorado. The real danger for the former president is the opportunity it presents for his primary challengers like Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley — as well as the prospect that he could in the future be kicked off the ballot in a swing state.

Mr Trump remains charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding in response to the events of January 6; he faces 91 felony counts in total relating to that case and four others brought by prosecutors after his presidency ended.

In the months after the January 6 attack, the House committee to investigate the siege found that Trump White House officials had known that their supporters were likely to become violent in the days leading up to the 6th. There was also substantial evidence shown that Mr Trump refused to work with congressional leadership to deploy the DC National Guard during the attack itself, while ignoring desperate pleadings from his allies to call off his supporters.