Former President Donald Trump lost his bid to throw out the Colorado-based lawsuit that could remove him from the ballot in that state, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) reported on Wednesday.
In the ruling, the judge noted that Trump sought to have the case ruled a nonjusticiable political question, but didn't provide any credible case law showing that was the case.
"A judge in Colorado just denied Trump's final motion to dismiss the 14th Amendment case to bar him from the ballot brought by six Colorado voters," wrote CREW on X. "We're glad to see this thoughtful ruling, which clears the way to present our clients' case at trial beginning Monday."
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The lawsuit, which parallels other lawsuits in states like Minnesota, aims to disqualify Trump under the Insurrection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which prohibits anyone who has engaged in insurrection against the United States from holding office except by a waiver of Congress — a measure passed in the wake of the Civil War.
Some key legal scholars, like former Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe and conservative former federal judge Michael Luttig, have thrown their support behind the legal theory that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to hold the office again.
However, the mechanism of removing him from the ballot on 14th Amendment grounds is as yet untested under case law, and could vary state to state as different officials have different powers under state constitutions to decide who qualifies for the ballot.
