A New Mexico Republican was removed from office just last year for the same reason that Trump was ordered off the 2024 Colorado ballot
AP Photos/Gemunu Amarasinghe and Charlie Neibergall
- The Colorado Supreme Court cited part of the 14th Amendment as it booted Trump from the 2024 ballot.
- That same clause was used last year — by the same group — to remove a NM politician from office.
- But the two situations aren't the same. The Supreme Court will have the final word with Trump.
Tuesday's shock ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court isn't the first time — even in the last couple of years — that the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution has been used to block a Republican from office.
In September 2022, a New Mexico state judge ordered the removal of Couy Griffin — the founder of "Cowboys for Trump" and a participant in the January 6 assault on the US Capitol — from his position as an Otero county commissioner.
Griffin had already been convicted of trespassing on Capitol grounds, and Judge Francis Matthew found that Griffin had engaged in "insurrection or rebellion," as laid out in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.
It was the first time since 1869 that a court had used the provision to disqualify someone from office.
That lawsuit was organized by Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW), and months later, the group announced its plans to pursue the disqualification of former President Donald Trump using the same argument.
"Should you seek or secure any future elected or appointed government office including the presidency of the United States, we will pursue your disqualification," wrote CREW President Noah Bookbinder in a November letter to Trump.
"They started with me," Griffin told ABC News in September. "It's never been about Couy Griffin, it's been about Trump."
A separate group tried in April 2022 to use the provision to remove Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from the ballot in Georgia.
Though the effort was unsuccessful, the resulting hearing forced Greene to answer questions under penalty of perjury about whether she'd called for then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's execution or urged Trump to declare martial law to remain in power.
On Tuesday, the Colorado Supreme Court found that Trump was disqualified from the 2024 presidential ballot in the state, arguing that he had incited an insurrection on January 6, 2021.
But unlike in Griffin's case, the decision is almost certain to fall into the hands of the US Supreme Court, where the final outcome remains unclear.