Republicans Threaten to Take Joe Biden Off Ballot in States They Control
Republicans have called for the removal of President Joe Biden from state ballots after a Colorado judge ruled that Donald Trump will not be allowed to appear on their ballots next year.
The Colorado Supreme Court, in a decision handed down on Wednesday by a vote of 4-3, ruled that former President Obama violated the 14th Amendment which prohibits public officials from being in federal office if the have been involved in insurrection.
In November, a Colorado lower court ruled that Trump had engaged in insurrection for his actions during the riot on the U.S. Capitol grounds of January 6, 2021. During the siege of the building, Trump supporters stormed it in protest at his loss.
Trump, who is the leading candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024, has denied any wrongdoing, and hasn’t been charged with rebellion. He has claimed that the constitution does not give courts the power to exclude candidates from the ballot.
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Some Republicans now say that Biden should also be removed from the state ballots. However, it is unclear on what constitutional grounds they base this.
Newsweek contacted the Republican Party by email to get their comments.
Anthony Sabatini is a Republican candidate for Congress running in Florida’s 11th District. He was previously a Florida State Representative. On X (formerly Twitter), he wrote: “Remove Biden now!”
According to Fox News, Texas’ Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said that Biden’s administration’s approach to immigration along the U.S./Mexico border should prevent him from being on his state’s ballot in 2024.
Patrick said, “Seeing what happened to Colorado makes me wonder–except that we believe in democracy here in Texas- maybe we should remove Joe Biden from the Texas ballot for allowing 8 million people to cross our border while he was president and disrupting Texas,” Patrick said.
Gunther Eagleman, a political commentator and author on X, wrote that Biden’s name should be taken off the Texas ballot following the Colorado ruling. Peachy Keenan a conservative author and commentator, went a step farther, writing on X that “all red states should petition their courts immediately to remove Biden’s name from the ballot.”
In its ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court stated: “A majority of this court finds that President Trump is not eligible to hold the office of president under Section Three Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
It added that “President Trump didn’t merely incite insurrection.” Even when the siege of the Capitol was well underway, President Trump continued to support the siege by demanding repeatedly that Vice-President Pence refuse to fulfill his constitutional duties and calling Senators to convince them to stop counting electoral votes. These actions were an overt, direct, and voluntary participation in the insurrection.
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for the Trump campaign, said that they would appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Unsurprisingly, the all-Democrat-appointed Colorado Supreme Court has ruled against President Trump, supporting a [George] Soros-funded, left-wing group’s scheme to interfere in an election on behalf of Crooked Joe Biden by removing President Trump’s name from the ballot and eliminating the rights of Colorado voters to vote for the candidate of their choice,” Cheung said in a statement.
Cheung continued: “Democrat Party Leaders are paranoid about the overwhelming lead that President Trump is accumulating in the polls. They lost all faith in the failed Biden administration and now do everything possible to prevent the American voters from removing them next November.
The Colorado Supreme Court made a deeply undemocratic ruling tonight. We will appeal this decision to the United States Supreme Court, and request a stay. We are confident that the U.S. Supreme Court is going to quickly rule in favor of us and put an end these un-American lawsuits.
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