Patterico's Pontifications

12/20/2023

Colorado Republican Party Threatens To Withdraw From Republican Presidential Primary

Filed under: General — Dana @ 7:44 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Following the ruling of the Colorado Supreme Court concerning Donald Trump, the state Republican Party, unsurprisingly, wants to cancel the Republican presidential primary:

The Colorado GOP is threatening to try to withdraw from Colorado’s Republican presidential primary in March — or ignore the results — if Donald Trump isn’t on the ballot, heaping uncertainty onto the fast-approaching contest and setting up a possible legal showdown with state elections officials.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Trump can’t appear on the ballot because he engaged in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, at the U.S. Capitol and therefore is disqualified from holding office again. The decision will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but there’s little time for a resolution before the Jan. 5 state deadline to set the ballot. Ballots start being mailed to military and overseas voters on Jan. 20. Election Day is March 5.

Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams told The Colorado Sun…that if Trump isn’t on the ballot, the party would ask the state to cancel the Republican presidential primary. Instead, Republican voters would caucus to select delegates to the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next year.

The report explains that “Colorado law does not allow a presidential primary election to be canceled at the request of a political party. If the Colorado Republican Party attempts to withdraw from the presidential primary or ignore the results of the election, this would likely be a matter for the courts.”

Additionally: State law says “each political party shall use the results of the (presidential primary) election to allocate national delegate votes in accordance with the party’s state and national rules.”

According to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, she intends to “follow the court decision that is in place at the time of ballot certification.”

You can read the opinion here.

—Dana

9 Responses to “Colorado Republican Party Threatens To Withdraw From Republican Presidential Primary”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (932d71) — 12/20/2023 @ 7:46 pm

  2. Good the more the merrier! Strict constructionist original intent republican appointed supreme court judges have a big problem! Go with strict interpretation of 14 th amendment as gorsuch did in colorado hassan case ruling him off the ballot and say they are only following the constitution. Or do as I say not as I do and for trump ignore what 14th amendment says.

    asset (38ca01) — 12/20/2023 @ 7:58 pm

  3. each political party shall use the results of the (presidential primary) election to allocate national delegate votes in accordance with the party’s state and national rules.

    We’ll see about them rules then.

    Kevin M (ed969f) — 12/20/2023 @ 10:02 pm

  4. A caucus is a great idea. The more caucuses, the better.

    Paul Montagu (d52d7d) — 12/20/2023 @ 11:09 pm

  5. I’m stoked.

    This will be used by other states.

    This will also be used by other states of different political persuasion.

    In short, embrace the chaos.

    Unless SCOTUS, aka mommy & daddy steps in and puts an end to this.

    whembly (5f7596) — 12/21/2023 @ 6:46 am

  6. Additionally: State law says “each political party shall use the results of the (presidential primary) election to allocate national delegate votes in accordance with the party’s state and national rules.”

    This is misleading. A state has no jurisdiction over what a national convention does – and besides this says delegates are to be allocated according to a party’s national rules.

    Sammy Finkelman (c2c77e) — 12/21/2023 @ 7:12 am

  7. I blame Roy Cohn. He left poor Donnie with a totally wrong impression of the consequences of being a pain in the ass. (Yeah, there’s a double entendre there.)

    nk (d58a99) — 12/21/2023 @ 7:58 am

  8. This will be a hot topic of discussion at the John Brown Beecher’s Bible class this weekend. AOC is scheduled to give a talk on “The Art Of Arroz Con Pollo Borinqueno” but I don’t think there will be time for it.

    nk (d58a99) — 12/21/2023 @ 8:03 am

  9. I found this:

    https://coloradosun.com/2023/12/20/donald-trump-colorado-case-laws

    Colorado’s statutes allow voters to bring a lawsuit challenging a presidential primary candidate’s qualifications to be on the ballot and they require courts to make a speedy ruling on the claim

    But isn’t that usually based on not having a sufficient number of signatures on petitions , and having X number of signatures etc. is a requirement written into state law

    You can’t just willy nilly say that the 14th amendment creates an additional grounds for disqualification.

    By the way, Colorado disqualified a long serving Congressman in 2018 and was overturned by a federal court.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/20/us/colorado-supreme-court-barred-trump.html

    Two years earlier, in 2018, the court removed a Republican candidate from a ballot. It found that Representative Doug Lamborn, a longtime congressman from Colorado Springs, had not collected enough valid voter signatures to be on the ballot. In that case, however, a federal court disagreed and eventually reinstated Mr. Lamborn, who won the election.

    Doug Lamborn is stilll in Congress, representing the 5th District of Colorado.

    Another case:

    The decision on Trump on Tuesday was not the first time the court has removed a political candidate from the ballot. In 2020, it ruled that a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, Michelle Ferrigno Warren, could not appear on the primary ballot because she had not collected enough signatures from voters. A lower court had been more lenient, citing the Covid-19 pandemic, but the state’s highest court disagreed.

    But both cases involvedan explicit requirement of state law

    Sammy Finkelman (1d215a) — 12/22/2023 @ 10:00 am


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