December 29, 2023
If you can’t keep track of which states will have former president trump on the ballot – I’m going to run down the list in this video.
So – if you can’t remember anything else from this video – just remember this. At this point Colorado and Maine are the only states that have ruled that former president trump should not appear on their ballots because of a violation of the 14th Amendment. Of course – both of those state rulings could be overturned by the US Supreme Court.
Quick point of clarification – Colorado’s ruling was not “overturned” as lots people are telling you on the internet. Colorado’s supreme court’s ruling actually says at the end – their ruling to remove Trump will be paused until the Supreme Court decides. But if the Supreme Court decides not to get involved, Trump will be off the ballot.
You can see on the map – the red states have ruled he should be removed.
Now there are several other states that also heard similar 14th Amendment cases trying to remove the former president from the ballot and came to a different conclusion.
Just today – the Secretary of State in California said she was considering removing him under the 14th Amendment, but ultimately decided the state law prevented her from doing that.
You can see states that have decided to take no action under the 14th Amendment will be in green.
In Minnesota the state’s supreme court dismissed a petition to remove Trump from the ballot because of the 14th Amendment. Those Minnesota Supreme Court judges said they didn’t have the authority to do that.
In Arizona – the secretary of state was also looking at removing trump but in October decided he couldn’t. He said the state law had “tied his hands” because of a requirement to certify the ballot 100 days before the primary.
In New Hampshire – the same thing happened with the Secretary of State. He considered removing Trump from the ballot but said because of that state’s laws the question was for the Supreme Court to answer.
In Michigan – the state supreme court had a very interesting ruling just a few days ago. Several cases involving the 14th Amendment and the former President were filed with the Secretary of State. There was no trial on these issues but in the end the Michigan’s supreme court ruled Trump can stay on the primary ballot for now. But they never said the case can’t be refiled later. The state supreme court simply upheld the state appellate court ruling that said the primary election is too early to make such arguments about removing Trump. The plaintiffs said they have every intention of refiling this case if trump becomes the republican nominee.
And at any minute we could get a ruling on a similar case in Oregon. The same group that filed the Michigan lawsuit is also seeking to have the courts remove trump from the ballot there. Oregon’s secretary of state declined to remove Trump in response to an earlier challenge.
Cases to remove trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment were also filed in all these other states but were dismissed. You can see the states added in green. But there are other cases that are still pending. You can see those in yellow.
So obviously this issue of the former President whether he’s qualified to be president again under the 14th Amendment is a real issue. But because each state is coming to a different conclusion it is very possible the US Supreme Court will have to step in and decide. But at this point—they haven’t said either way if they’ll get involved.
