Colorado disqualified Donald Trump from its primary ballot. Will California do the same?

Former President Donald Trump is still on the March 5 primary election ballot in the state of California — for now.

The Secretary of State’s office confirmed that Trump is on its list of generally recognized presidential candidates for the March primary.

But following the Colorado Supreme Court’s Tuesday decision to remove Trump from that state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot and California Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis’ Wednesday call to “explore legal options to remove” Trump from California’s, the status of Trump’s appearance on the ballot is becoming increasingly questionable.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol riot a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment disqualification clause. Kounalakis, a Democrat, cited the same argument when she wrote to Secretary of State Shirley Weber “urging” her to explore ways to keep Trump off the ballot.

Section 3 of the Amendment, also referred to as the “disqualification clause,” straightforwardly states that no person who had previously taken an oath to support the Constitution as an elected official, who then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” can serve in public office again.

“There will be inevitable political punditry about a decision to remove Trump from the ballot,” Kounalakis said. “But this is not a matter of political gamesmanship. This is a dire matter that puts at stake the sanctity of our constitution and our democracy.”

Unsurprisingly, Trump — who has a comfortable lead in state and national primary polls despite mounting legal troubles — said he would appeal the court’s decision to the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court.

Republicans in California and around the nation had a consistent message about the ballot removal effort: It’s Democrats trying to rig the democratic process.

“Once again, Democrats are salivating at any opportunity to deprive Republican voters of a full slate of candidates for our nation’s highest office. California Democrats need to quit meddling in Republicans’ primary and leave this decision to California voters,” said California GOP chairwoman Jessica Millan Patterson.

The California push to get Trump off the ballot

California’s lieutenant governor is not the first California politician who wants Trump’s name wiped from the ballot because of his role in the Jan. 6 riot.

In September, Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Silicon Valley, wrote a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta requesting that he “seek the court opinion” on the legality of Trump’s placement on the primary ballot for his role in the attack on the Capitol.

Eight fellow California lawmakers from both parties signed it, including Asm. Kevin McCarty, a Democrat who is now running for mayor of Sacramento.

That same month, the colorful and pugnacious Venice Beach civil rights attorney Stephen Yagman filed a lawsuit against Weber in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, on behalf of a registered voter named A.W. Clark.

In the lawsuit, Yagman alleges that Trump is disqualified from being president and should not be on the ballot — not just for violating Section 3 of the 14th Amendment but also for violating the Right to Due Process under the same amendment.

“The right to vote includes as a necessary component the right to vote for a candidate for president who is constitutionally eligible to be president and who is not prohibited or barred from being president,” the suit reads.

“Defendant putting or allowing the putting of Trump’s name on any ballot having to do with the 2024 presidential election would violate plaintiff’s Due Process rights, both substantive and procedural, under the Fourteenth Amendment.”

The case is ongoing, despite Trump, an intervenor defendant in the case, filing a motion to dismiss on December 8.

The motion is set for a hearing on January 8. Trump is represented in the case by Mark Meuser, who ran unsuccessfully for California Senate in 2022, and Shawn Cowles, both of the Dhillon Law Group, led by Harmeet Dhillon, the former vice chairwoman of the California Republican Party, and a Republican national committeewoman for California.

Yagman called Dhillon “really f------- nuts” and “outrageous.”

“Her firm makes a fortune because all the Republicans go to her … I’m pleased to have people on the other side who aren’t real lawyers,” he said.

The Colorado case can help his effort, he said, because the court established that the events of January 6 did qualify as an insurrection.

“When we get to that issue in our case,” Yagman said, “we can offer our judgments from the Colorado Supreme Court, and the court will adjudicate that issue in our favor.”

Republicans respond

On Wednesday, the California Republican Party responded to California Democrats saying the former president’s opponents were trying to “kick President Trump off the ballot.”

“This is the same play, different election cycle, for California Democrats, having also tried (and failed!) to kick President Trump off of the ballot in 2020,” said CAGOP chairwoman Patterson.

A 2019 state law would have required all presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns in order for them to appear on the ballot. At the time, Trump was refusing to do so, though he eventually did.

The events of January 6 split Republicans — some voted to impeach Trump over his role in inciting his supporters to riot at the Capitol, and others, like fellow presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, have said that it wasn’t an insurrection to begin with.

“It was not an insurrection,” said the Florida governor in an interview in July.

“These were people that were there to attend a rally, and then they were there to protest. Now, it devolved, and it devolved into a riot, but the idea that this was a plan to somehow overthrow the government of the United States is not true, and it’s something that the media had spun up just to try and basically get as much mileage out of it and use it for partisan and for political aims.”

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who is also running for president, said after the attack that Trump “let us down.”

“He went down a path he shouldn’t have,” she said in February 2021. “And we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

She still disagreed with the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling.

“We don’t need to have judges making these decisions,” she said. “We need voters to make these decisions.”

This story was originally published December 20, 2023 at 1:32 PM.