Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, floated the idea of taking President Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas over his handling of the border crisis after the Colorado Supreme Court ruled to block former President Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot.
“Seeing what happened in Colorado tonight makes me think—except we believe in democracy in Texas—maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing 8 million people to cross the border since he’s been president, disrupting our state far more than anything anyone else has done in recent history,” Mr. Patrick told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham in an interview on Dec. 19.
Mr. Patrick’s remarks came after a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that bars President Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot on the basis of a section of the 14th Amendment that blocks those who engaged in an insurrection from running for office.
A ballot measure that would allow the police department to use advanced technology and also give it more independent authority—introduced by San Francisco Mayor London Breed—is drawing support from tech investors who have made approximately $400,000 in recent donations, according to city and county ethics commission records.
Proposition E would authorize police to use drones and surveillance cameras, allow officers to pursue suspects involved in felony or violent misdemeanor crimes, and reduce paperwork needed to file reports. It would also alter the balance of power between the department and the commission tasked with overseeing it by requiring public meetings for policy changes.
Chris Larsen, founder and executive chairman of Ripple—a San Francisco-based cryptocurrency firm—donated $250,000 toward the initiative earlier this month. Another $100,000 came in from Ronald Conway, philanthropist, founder, and managing partner of the venture capital firm SV Angel, according to campaign finance records.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling to remove former President Donald Trump from the state primary ballot for the 2024 election is “a political decision” and accused Democrats of harboring hatred toward the former president.
During an interview with ABC News’ “This Week” on Dec. 24, Mr. Graham said it was not based in law.
“It is a political decision,” he said, adding that the ruling “is chilling” and “it would set up a politicization of the presidential races. It would be bad for the country.”
The Michigan Supreme Court has rejected an attempt to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot based on a reading of the insurrection clause within the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
However, some analysts have suggested that the U.S. Supreme Court would overturn the Colorado court’s ruling—as he hasn’t been charged with either rebellion or insurrection in any jurisdiction.
A slew of lawsuits are aimed at disqualifying former President Donald Trump from running for office in 2024, creating an increasingly unstable presidential election season.
All of these attempts rest on the argument that the “insurrection” clause of the 14th Amendment bars the former president from appearing on the ballot.
The most significant decision was handed down on Dec. 21, when the Colorado Supreme Court ruled in a 4–3 decision that President Trump couldn’t appear on the state’s ballot because he had engaged in an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon predicts former President Donald Trump to either be on ballots in every state across America or be absent everywhere in the aftermath of the Colorado Supreme Court decision to ban the candidate from the state’s ballot.
“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,” Mr. Simon said in a Dec. 23 interview with MSNBC. “He will either be on the ballot everywhere or nowhere. And the US Supreme Court is going to make sure of that. So they will take the case. There’s no question in my mind, just for the sake of national uniformity. And that means we’re going to have resolution. We’re going to have clarity here.”
However, there are “so many different ways” for the U.S. Supreme Court to approach and resolve the matter, he stated.