by Hugh McQuaid
Unless a court decides otherwise, former President Donald Trump will remain on Connecticut ballots in 2024, Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas’s office said this week, days after Colorado’s Supreme Court ordered him removed from that state’s primary ballots.
In a decision released Tuesday, a majority of Colorado’s Supreme Court found Trump ineligible to hold the office of president based on a provision of the U.S. Constitution that bars elected officials who engaged in insurrection from serving in office.
“President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three; because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Secretary to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot,” the Colorado court wrote in a 4-3 decision.
That won’t be the case here in Connecticut, according to a spokesperson for Thomas, the state’s top election administrator.
“While the Connecticut Secretary of the State has limited discretion over the placement of a candidate’s name on the Presidential Preference Primary ballot, the Secretary does not have jurisdiction over determining whether the Fourteenth Amendment disqualifies Donald J. Trump from appearing on either the Presidential Preference Primary ballot or the general election ballot of November 2024, only a court does,” Jillian Hirst, a spokesperson for Thomas, said in a statement.
Back in September, the Secretary of the State’s Office said it was reviewing several requests to bar Trump from Connecticut ballots under the 14th Amendment. The constitutional provision dates back to the aftermath of the Civil War, when it was used by Congress to disqualify some former Confederate officials from taking office in the legislature.
Arguments for disqualifying Trump rest on the former president’s role in the events surrounding the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to President Joe Biden.
Hirst worried the various court rulings regarding Trump’s qualification for 2024 ballots risked creating confusion about the national electoral process.
“It would be in the best interest of our country’s democracy for the US Supreme Court to adjudicate the issue and provide direction to the states,” she said.
Trump’s campaign reacted to the Colorado decision with a Tuesday statement accusing the court of “interfering in an election” on behalf of President Joe Biden and promising to appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Connecticut civil rights attorney Alex Taubes, along with New Haven Alderman Maceo Troy Streater, wrote to Thomas earlier this year to ask that she conduct a fact-finding hearing on the matter.
On Friday, Taubes said the Secretary of the State’s announcement this week served as a “smoke screen” to cover state Democrats’ desire to keep Trump on the ballot. Trump has proven to be an effective driver of turnout among Democratic voters, Taubes said.
“We just think that the Democrats need to grow a backbone and take Trump on and take him off the ballot,” he said. “We know that this issue isn’t going to be brought up in any states where Republicans are in power. It’s really the duty of the Democrats who are in office and swore an oath to the constitution to uphold that oath. So far, our Connecticut Democrats don’t seem to be upholding that.”
Taubes said he and Streater were actively exploring their own legal options to force the issue, but suggested the Secretary of the State’s position on the issue served as a roadblock.