ACLJ Files Final Brief at the Supreme Court To Protect Your Right To Vote for the Candidate of Your Choice

Today the ACLJ filed our reply brief at the U.S. Supreme Court in Trump v. Anderson, defending your right to vote for the candidate of your choice. Since September, we have been fighting in court on behalf of the Colorado Republican Party for its right to select its own political candidates, free from illegitimate and unfounded partisan interference. We have now filed our final brief at the Supreme Court in the case, the oral argument is Thursday, and we will be awaiting a final decision soon.

On December 19, 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 vote that President Donald Trump should be removed from the Colorado ballot, and no votes for him should be counted. We petitioned for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court on December 27 on behalf of the Colorado Republican Party, urging the Court to correct this egregious decision. When the Court decided to hear this case, it set an abbreviated schedule, and we filed our first brief addressing the merits of the case on January 17, 2024. Now we have filed our final brief, replying to the arguments of the other side and making our final arguments to the Court.

Those seeking to remove President Trump from the ballot have focused their arguments on claims about how bad they think his conduct is. In our brief, we have pointed out the irrelevance of those arguments because the problem here is the process. We have shown that the President is not even covered by Section Three of the 14th Amendment in the first place, and that state courts or individuals don’t have the authority to enforce Section Three at all. Congress, and Congress alone, has the authority to determine how Section Three is enforced. The other side’s views of President Trump simply have nothing to do with these principles. We have shown conclusively in our briefs that these individuals simply had no right to remove anyone from the ballot, and they certainly could not remove President Trump, who is not even covered by Section Three. As is appropriate, other briefs have focused on other arguments of why the Colorado Supreme Court got it wrong, but we have focused on explaining why that state court did not have the ability to even decide whether President Trump committed “insurrection” in the first place.

We’re thankful for the many amici that have joined our side to recognize the dangers of what the Colorado Supreme Court has done – from former attorneys general for Presidents Reagan, Bush, and Trump to almost 180 Members of Congress, to more than 30 state and territorial Republican Parties, and many more. There have been an incredible number of amicus briefs filed in this case urging the Supreme Court to correct the errors of the Colorado Supreme Court and return to the people their right to choose.

This is so much more than one primary in one state – this is the greatest election interference case in U.S. history. As I have said before, this is one of the most important cases we have ever taken on. If this can happen here and can happen now, it will keep happening and will happen to anyone. As we saw already in Maine, state Secretaries of State will feel emboldened to make ballot decisions in ways that they have never done before. It’s direct election interference. We hope the U.S. Supreme Court, now that it has received the briefs, resolves this matter soon.