October 13, 2023 01:52 PM UTC

Team Trump Fails To Kill 14th Amendment Lawsuit

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• by: Colorado Pols

The Denver Post’s Nick Coltrain updates on the ongoing case of Andersen v. Griswold, filed by a group of Republican and unaffiliated voters seeking to force Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold to remove ex-President Donald Trump from the 2024 Republican primary ballot under the 14th Amendment’s Insurrection Clause:

Trump’s lawyers argued in September that the lawsuit was an attempt to infringe on his First Amendment right to freedom of speech. They sought to dismiss the claim under a Colorado law aimed at protecting people from frivolous lawsuits for exercising that right.

Without ruling on the merits of the case, Denver District Court Judge Sarah B. Wallace ruled Wednesday that “in short, it is in the public’s interest that only qualified and faithful candidates be allowed to seek public office,” and that an exemption to that law applied.

“It goes without saying that, in the abstract, ensuring that only constitutionally qualified candidates can seek to hold the highest office in the country, particularly when the disqualification sought is based on allegations of insurrection against the very government over which the candidate seeks to preside, seeks to enforce an important right which confers a significant benefit to the public,” Wallace wrote.

The court ruled that the suit does not meet the definition of a so-called Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP suit), which Colorado law does afford some protection from if ruled to be a frivolous suit meant to suppress dissent from those who don’t have the resources to fight in court. Trump most certainly does have the resources for as many legal battles as necessary, and the judge ruled that a proper resolution of the case is in the public interest.

As AP reports via the Colorado Sun, the case now goes to trial at the end of this month on the merits:

The Colorado case will focus in part on the meaning of “insurrection” under the 14th Amendment, whether it applies only to waging war on the U.S. or can apply to Trump’s goading of a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to halt the certification of President Joe Biden’s win…

Trump swore a presidential oath to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution, but the text of the 14th Amendment says it applies to those who have sworn oaths to “support” the Constitution, [attorney Geoffrey] Blue pointed out the semantic difference in an Oct. 6 filing in the case.

Trump attorney Geoffrey Blue, the partner of former Republican Secretary of State and election conspiracy theorist before it was cool Scott Gessler, intends to argue that the 14th Amendment was “never intended” to be enforced against a President of the United States, that the violence to overturn the 2020 election results on January 6th, 2021 does not qualify as an “insurrection,” and that minute wording differences between the oath taken by the President and that specified in the 14th Amendment mean it doesn’t apply to the very top. Colorado’s lawsuit has now been joined by similar efforts in Minnesota and Michigan, and are primed to make their way quickly before the U.S. Supreme Court for a final determination on how–and whether ever–the Insurrection Clause should be enforced.

Right after the Civil War when the 14th Amendment was drafted, insurrection was not a “political question.” It was a question of national survival. This lawsuit is seeking an answer to a very basic question: whether violence should be an acceptable option for resolving political disputes.

There can be no more fundamental public interest.