The Oregon Supreme Court declined on Friday to take up a challenge seeking to remove former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 primary and general election ballots.
The challenge to Trump’s ballot eligibility was brought by five Oregon voters who want the former president disqualified from the ballot, citing the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Fox 12 reported.
“Today’s decision in Oregon was the correct one,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. “President Trump urges the swift dismissal of all remaining, bad-faith, election interference 14th Amendment ballot challenges.”
The attempt to disqualify Trump in Oregon came amid a bevy of ballot challenges facing his campaign, including the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision last month to take the former president off the ballot. Trump quickly appealed Colorado’s decision, and last week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up the case.
In her order on Friday, Oregon Chief Justice Meagan Flynn pointed to the Colorado case and left the door open for the challenge to Trump’s ballot qualification in Oregon to be filed again depending on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision, the Statesman Journal reported. Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade, a Democrat, said in November that she does not have the authority to take Trump off the ballot.
“Oregon law does not give me the authority to determine the qualifications of candidates in a presidential primary,” Griffin-Valade said. “I will follow our usual process and expect to put Donald Trump on the primary ballot unless a court directs me otherwise.”
Griffin-Valade’s conclusion was the opposite of Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, another Democrat, who announced last month that Trump was disqualified from the state’s ballot. Trump has also appealed Bellows’ decision, calling her a “biased decision maker.”
“The secretary should have recused herself due to her bias against President Trump, as demonstrated by a documented history of prior statements prejudging the issue presented,” Trump’s lawyers said in their appeal to the Maine Superior Court.
The Supreme Court’s decision in the Colorado case will likely have implications for multiple states as groups of voters in Illinois and Massachusetts are also seeking to remove Trump from the ballot. The high court will begin oral arguments on February 8, just a few weeks before presidential primaries in Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, and Illinois. Trump will remain on the ballot in Colorado unless the Supreme Court rules against him.
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