Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon has predicted that former President Donald Trump will be on the ballot “everywhere or nowhere,” depending on what the Supreme Court decides.
Simon, a Democrat, discussed Trump being removed from the Colorado ballot during an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday.
“We’re never going to have a situation in this country where one or some cluster of states decides that Donald Trump is not on the ballot and everyone else decides he is,” Simon said. “He will either be on the ballot everywhere or nowhere, and the U.S. Supreme Court is going to make sure of that.”
If the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Trump being removed from the ballot in Colorado, it could result in him being removed from ballots nationally.
“There’s so many different ways that the Supreme Court could go, there are multiple off ramps for them, for example, to decide the case without deciding the ultimate issue, which is, did Donald Trump engage in or help an insurrection?” Simon said. “They don’t have to decide that. There are a number of ways they can dispose of the case and get an outcome without deciding that question.”
“There’s that extra angst and anxiety trying to figure out just logistically, just administratively how this is going to work if and when this spills over into a general election,” he said. “Administratively, it’s a headache, to put it mildly.”
The Hill reports, “Over a dozen states have considered or are considering similar challenges to Trump’s ballot qualifications. Minnesota dismissed a similar claim on procedural grounds, saying the case should be brought only if Trump is made the GOP nominee.”
Simon said that the Colorado ruling is the “canary in the coal mine,” and that potential litigants across the country are waiting to see what the Supreme Court decides.
Last week, the Colorado Supreme Court disqualified Trump from appearing on the 2024 GOP presidential primary ballot after ruling that he was “involved in aiding an insurrection on January 6, 2021.”
“A majority of the court holds that President Trump is disqualified from holding the office of President under Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution,” the ruling said. “Because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the Election Code for the Colorado Secretary of State to list him as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot.”
The lawsuit was filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW), a Washington D.C.-based watchdog group. They argued that former President Trump was involved in aiding an insurrection on January 6, 2021 — and therefore ineligible to run in the 2024 election. The group cited a never-before-used Civil War-era provision to the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states:
“No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States … who, having previously taken an oath … as an officer of the United States, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”
Trump has not been charged or convicted of engaging in insurrection against the United States.
The Colorado Republican Party has said that they will “withdraw from the Primary as a Party and convert to a pure caucus system if this is allowed to stand.”
Trump has indicated that he will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which holds a conservative majority.
