US SC agrees to review Trump’s Colorado ballot eligibility

Washington: The US Supreme Court has agreed to take up whether former President Donald Trump can be disqualified from appearing on Colorado’s primary ballot, setting up a historic case ahead of the presidential election.

The US Supreme Court’s announcement on Friday came two days after Trump asked the court to invalidate a recent ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, which removed him from the state’s 2024 presidential primary ballot, citing a US constitutional provision that prohibits people who have engaged in “insurrection” from federal office.

The US Supreme Court’s decision, expected to be made at a speedy pace, could potentially set guidelines nationwide that would determine how Colorado and other states handle the issue, Xinhua news agency reported.

The case would be argued on an accelerated schedule on Feb. 8, with a ruling likely to follow soon after.

Lawsuits in Colorado, as well as some other states, argue that Trump should be disqualified from ballots because he engaged in inciting the Capitol Hill insurrection on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to block the 2020 presidential election victory of Joe Biden.

The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling two weeks ago marked the first time a US state court agreed that Trump should be disqualified from the 2024 presidential election citing the rarely used insurrection clause.

Last week, Maine’s Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, barred Trump from the primary ballot, making Maine the second state to block the former president from running again.

Both states will hold their primaries on Super Tuesday, March 5.