Last week, I explained why a new lawsuit can answer the question in court of whether the 14th Amendment bars Donald Trump from office. The reason it can answer this crucial question is that, as a state lawsuit, the voters in the case filed in Colorado have standing to bring it, unlike a voter suit in Florida federal court that was dismissed for lack of legal standing.
But I noted a possible early complication in the Colorado case, with Trump trying to move it to federal court (the same sort of thing some criminal defendants in Trump’s Georgia prosecution want to do there).
It’s an embarrassing and unnecessary early loss in the litigation from the Trump team.
As it turns out, it was hardly a complication at all. The effort was quickly shot down by a federal judge. That’s because Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who’s named in the suit along with Trump, would have also needed to want to move the case to federal court. But she didn’t. That flaw in Trump’s removal attempt led Chief U.S. District Judge Philip Brimmer to dismiss it as “defective” on Tuesday, sending it back to the state court.
So, it’s an embarrassing and unnecessary early loss in the litigation from the Trump team.
To be sure, that loss doesn’t foreshadow how the state court will answer the question of whether the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause keeps Trump off the ballot. Section 3 of the amendment bars anyone from office who took an oath to support the Constitution of the United States but then has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.” But the important thing, for now, is that the case is back on track to hopefully answer that pivotal question. Meanwhile, another state lawsuit was filed this week, in Minnesota, that could provide another means of getting the courts to weigh in. Like the Colorado case, it’s brought by registered voters who argue Trump is disqualified following the Jan. 6 insurrection. Ultimately, whether it’s through these suits or any others, it’s an issue that the Supreme Court may ultimately need to resolve. And with these latest developments, we may be closer to that resolution.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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