This story by Quentin Young appeared on Colorado Newsline on October 24, 2023.
Former President Donald Trump has formally indicated to Colorado election officials that he intends to run for president in the state in 2024.
Trump submitted candidate paperwork even as he faces a legal challenge to his eligibility to run in Colorado, and state approval of his candidacy is on hold pending developments in that case.
The secretary of state’s office received from Trump on October 11 a “statement of intent” to run in the presidential primary, according to documents Newsline obtained from the secretary’s office. The document attests that Trump is at least 35, has lived in the country at least 14 years and is a natural born U.S. citizen. The home address he submitted corresponds to that of the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Also submitted as part of Trump’s application to run was a $500 check from his campaign to the secretary of state’s office, and official approval of his candidacy from the Colorado Republican Party.
No other candidates have yet submitted ballot-access paperwork for the presidential primary in Colorado.
Submission of candidate documents to the secretary of state’s office, typically a routine step in the ballot-access process, carries unusual significance in Trump’s case, since a set of plaintiffs is suing Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold in state court in an effort to block him from the ballot next year.
Represented by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the plaintiffs, including several Republican voters, argue Trump, the leading GOP candidate for president in 2024, is disqualified under a provision of the 14th Amendment. Section 3 of the amendment says no person who took an oath to support the Constitution then had “engaged in insurrection … or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” can hold any office in the United States.
“Donald Trump tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election,” the lawsuit, filed in early September, says. “His efforts culminated on January 6, 2021, when he incited, exacerbated, and otherwise engaged in a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol by a mob who believed they were following his orders, and refused to protect the Capitol or call off the mob for nearly three hours as the attack unfolded.”
A weeklong trial in the case is scheduled to begin on Monday.
Secretary Griswold, who has said Trump did “incite an insurrection,” had not indicated whether she would try to keep Trump off the Colorado ballot. In September she said she welcomed the lawsuit as a way to answer legal questions around the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause. Upon receiving Trump’s candidate paperwork, her legal team wrote in a court filing, “In light of the claims brought in this proceeding, the Secretary intends to hold Mr. Trump’s application pending further direction from the Court.”
The Colorado case is seen as the first major test of the 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause since the Civil War era.
Other similar lawsuits, such as one filed by Free Speech For People in Minnesota in mid-September, have been filed in other states.
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