Ramaswamy Backs Trump in Supreme Court Filing in Colorado Ballot Case

Republican presidential candidate entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy participates in the fourth GOP presidential primary debate, at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on Dec. 6, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy has stepped in to support former President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain on presidential primary ballots in Colorado and Maine.

In an amicus brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 11, attorneys for Mr. Ramaswamy argue that attempts to bar President Trump from the ballot are merely a politically motivated attack orchestrated by Democrats who doubt they can beat him in a fair election.

“There is an obvious reason why President Trump is the only presidential candidate in American history to face a challenge to his qualifications under Section 3: Democrats fear the potential consequences of Trump’s election in 2024 more than any party has ever feared the victory of an opposing candidate,” they wrote.

“Histrionic screeds warning of a potential Trumpian dictatorship have proliferated in the pages of mainstream publications. And thanks to a deluge of worsening polls, Democrats now lack confidence that they can beat President Trump in a free and fair election. So, they have resorted to grasping for any tool that might allow them to avoid the humiliation of defeat at his hands.”

The Colorado Supreme Court and Maine’s Democrat Secretary of State Shenna Bellows have disqualified President Trump from appearing on their states’ primary ballots under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment—the disqualification clause.

The law disqualifies those who previously took an oath to support the Constitution “as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State” from holding any federal or state office, “civil or military,” if they have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.

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Notably, the text doesn’t explicitly name the roles of president or vice president among the list of officeholders the law applies to, although some argue that they are included under “an officer of the United States.”

Mr. Ramaswamy’s attorneys, however, contend that a plain reading of the amendment shows that the president doesn’t qualify as a member of that group.

“It would have been a simple matter to expressly list the President in Section 3 for the sake of clarity and to be certain—and yet the men who drafted the Amendment did no such thing,” they noted.

“Because the omission of the President from Section 3 is so glaring, ‘that which is omitted must be intended to have opposite and contrary treatment’ from the categories that were expressly enumerated.”

‘A Better Way’

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear President Trump’s appeal of the Colorado court’s decision on Feb. 8.

Mr. Ramaswamy’s attorneys, in their filing, warned that a ruling against the former president would validate Ms. Bellows’s move to disqualify him, signaling to other partisan officials that they could follow suit.

“As demonstrated over the last month, disqualifying a prominent presidential candidate of the opposing party is a fast-track to national notoriety,” they wrote. “The Maine Secretary of State has already appeared on CNN and MSNBC and been given a national platform to explain her decision—and, simultaneously, to increase her name recognition.

“And although this time, we have witnessed a state Supreme Court composed of Democrat appointees vote to disqualify a Republican presidential candidate, the temptation to wield ballot access decisions as a partisan cudgel will be universal—and bipartisan.”

The brief also notes that, as a candidate, Mr. Ramaswamy would likely benefit from President Trump’s disqualification from the primary ballot. But that result, his attorneys said, would deny voters their right to vote for the candidate who best suits their preferences.

“Those who seek to disqualify presidential candidates from even appearing on the ballot fundamentally distrust the American people,“ the attorneys wrote. ”They fear that the voters, if allowed to evaluate a full range of options, may make the ‘wrong’ choice as perceived by political elites, and so they seek to deprive voters of that choice entirely.

“There is a better way, and it is the route that Mr. Ramaswamy himself has chosen: President Trump’s opponents should focus on persuading voters that their candidate is the best choice, and then trust that voters will choose the candidate who best meets the moment.”

Maine Lawsuit

In addition to his appeal to the Supreme Court, President Trump has appealed the Maine ruling to the state’s Superior Court.

Earlier this week, he requested a stay of those proceedings pending the high court’s ruling in the Colorado case.

“In many ways, the current litigation is wholly unnecessary, unless President Trump is unsuccessful on all issues raised in the U.S. Supreme Court,” his attorneys wrote in their Jan. 8 motion.

Ms. Bellows objected to that request, arguing that it would violate Maine’s statutory deadline for adjudicating challenges to rulings on primary petitions.

“As relevant here, the statute provides that the Superior Court ‘shall issue a written decision ... within 20 days of the date of the decision of the Secretary of State,’ i.e., January 17, 2024,” she wrote in her response.

But President Trump’s attorneys fired back that the secretary herself had violated the mandatory timeframe to hold a hearing on the validity of his petition by granting “repeated extensions to solicit and receive additional briefing.”

“The Secretary took additional time for a practical reason; Sections 336 and 337 were never intended or designed to accommodate a complex factual and legal challenge under Section Three.”

The state’s Superior Court has yet to issue an order regarding the request for a stay.