Former U.S. President Donald Trump is back in the headlines again. Following his defeat in the 2020 election, Trump was in the news for his role in the Jan. 6 riots. Regardless of his loss to incumbent President Joe Biden, he plans to run again for the upcoming 2024 election. However, in December 2023, thanks to a Supreme Court ruling, Trump was removed from the presidential ballot in the state of Colorado. Soon after, he was removed from the ballot in the state of Maine. What led up to this? What is the background of his case? Does it go back to his presidency, or even before that? Did it begin after leaving office? Could he be removed in more states?
Since the end of his tenure as the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump has not left the news. He’s been in serious legal trouble since the 2020 election, in which he falsely claimed electoral fraud, and because he attempted to overturn the election results after losing to the current incumbent U.S. President Joe Biden. Before that, he already left a reputation as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, being the first President to have been impeached twice.
Despite this, he’s announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in the upcoming 2024 presidential election, but his recent legal troubles could make this difficult. Beginning in 2023, he was indicted in New York on 34 counts of falsifying business records, in Florida on 40 counts related to his handling of classified documents. Then, he was indicted in Washington D.C. on four counts of conspiracy and obstruction for efforts to overturn the election in 2020, and then in Georgia, for 19 counts of racketeering charges. Now in December 2023, it was announced that Trump’s candidacy for president in 2024 has been removed from the presidential ballot in the State of Colorado, because of a Supreme Court ruling 4-3.
The efforts of Donald Trump to remain in power following his loss in the 2020 election to Joe Biden is what caused him to be removed from the presidential ballots in the states of Colorado and Maine. It doesn’t end there. There are lawsuits pending in more than a dozen states seeking to have him removed to prevent him from appearing on primary ballots. Over the years, Congress and courts have not addressed how these challenges apply, and how the Supreme Court should explain the potential political dispute in the upcoming 2024 election. As a result of the 4-3 ruling in Colorado, the Supreme Court decided on December 19 that the former President should be removed from the possibility of appearing on the presidential ballot. However, the ruling did not address the upcoming 2024 election. Since then, the Colorado Republican Party is seeking to make an appeal about their decision. However, soon after, the state of Maine also removed Trump from the presidential ballot. Shenna Bellows, the Secretary of State. She claims that based on Section 3 of the Amendment that no presidential candidate has ever before been engaged in insurrection. However, she has since faced backlash and criticism from Republicans as well.
With more states seeking to have Trump removed from their ballots, it’s unclear what kind of future his presidential campaign holds in the upcoming 2024 election, but only time will tell.
Links:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/01/02/us/politics/trump-ballot-removal-map.html- Image 2